


Feeling Around In The Dark

by GypsySisters



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst and Feels, Dreamscapes, F/M, Mentor/Protégé, PTSD, Slow burn (sorta), Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-01-25 22:50:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12543008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GypsySisters/pseuds/GypsySisters
Summary: Captain Gabriel Lorca offers to mentor Cadet Sylvia Tilly...and they both get so much more than they bargained for.On a posting break until after the holiday season.





	1. Courtesy of Starfleet

Gabriel Lorca straightens his jacket and looks at his desk, making sure that all the items are aligned in perfect order. Of course, the order is his; the layout wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, perhaps. But such things are the happy perks of being the captain of his own ship.

Gently, he touches a small flickering ball of light and speaks into his comm.

“Cadet Tilly, please report to the Ready Room. Immediately.”

“Oh! Um. Yes, Sir?! I’ll… I’ll be right there.”

_The Ready Room? Was there…something going on? She screwed up, somehow, didn’t she? She did. She must have. Fuuuuuuck. Fuck fuck fuck. What did she do this time?_

  
The entire time that she is speed-walking to report to him, she’s distractedly running through her performance and behavior so far, trying to ascertain why in the universe the captain of the ship could be summoning her.

Meanwhile, Lorca absently strokes his Tribble, trying not to tap his fingers on the desk while he waits. The lights are still low, and for a minute he considers powering them back up.

_No._

Keep them low. He likes them that way, after all. He sees better in the half light of the monitors and the stars from behind the glass; besides, he likes seeing her in the low lighting.

_Watch it, Gabriel._

She arrives outside the room a little sweaty and slightly out of breath. _Great. That’s just great, Sylvia._

She smooths her hair back, tries to smooth down the front of her uniform while she catches her breath, then pushes the button to indicate she’s ready to enter.

The door chimes softly. Gabriel turns away from the door, to the glass looking out into the vastness of the universe outside, and exhales. “Enter.”

The door opens.

Tentatively, she steps into the dark room, the door closing behind her.

The lack of light makes her feel more vulnerable than normal, the added vulnerability makes her anxious … and she starts to ramble.

“Um… Sir?… I… before you say anything I just wanted to explain that…”

He remains very still, watching her in the reflection of the glass. “Continue.”

 _Deep breath._ “Well…actually…is this about the cafeteria? Or the lab work? Or maybe the incident with Ripper? Or something to do with Michael? Because, whatever it is, I can explain.”

He suppresses the urge to laugh, his upper lip twitching ever so slightly as he sighs. “If you have something to confess, now would be the time to do so, Cadet.”

“Ok…well…first off: when I asked the computer in the cafeteria to check the ingredients of the meal at lunch, I did not anticipate that it would hold up so many people, or that the program would be unable to provide the specific ingredients in the food…but don’t you think that kind of information should be readily accessible?! Because some people do have food allergies and while many symptoms, like eczema, are not life threatening, they are also incredibly common and worth making dietary adjustments for, when at all possible, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience the flow of a meal too much.’

“And with the lab reports, I know that the records show i didn’t spend nearly enough time at my station, but I devised a new formula for analyzing the data. Even though I finished early, and left for quarters sooner, I offered to assist my colleagues, but Stamets threw me out… buuut it’s not his fault. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned his name. I mean. He was fine. I didn’t mind leaving, really. It gave me a chance to take a walk around the ship. Don’t you ever just get out to stretch your legs? You should try it sometime.’

“God! It’s dark in here. Isn’t it? I keep thinking my eyes will adjust, but even though they have, I still can’t see a thing!”

Lorca closes his eyes and counts to ten before turning. “Press buttons Alpha-Beta-Neura on the console, and the lighting will begin to adjust more to your liking.”

“What? Oh…on…your console? Alrighty then. I’ll just… walk… over here… behind the console… and push the buttons… on the captain’s console… ok… Alpha… Beta… Wait. Computer, cancel that. Why do you have it so dark, anyways? I mean… everyone knows about your injury, but that just has to do with light changes, right? Or does the light… does it just hurt all the time? Oh, God, that’s too personal, isn’t it?!”

“Would you really like to know, Cadet Tilly?”

“Who wouldn’t want to know as much about everything as humanly possible?! Um … Sir.”

He huffs out a breath before turning around to face her. She has so much to learn before she becomes a captain, though that she will he has no doubt.

The lights are beginning to level up, and the fluorescents are catching the highlights in her hair, making them catch fire ever so slightly. “You might want to take a fortune cookie, and have a seat.”

She is baffled. What is… going on here? And who reprimands an underling with… cookies?  
She does as she’s told, holding her cookie on her lap, chattering nervously. “You know, I always thought it would be funny to have very specific fates written inside of fortune cookies, like, “You’re going to get hit by a bus” or something like that. Not that getting hit by a bus would be funny! Oh no. No no no it’s just… the fortunes are so vague, y’know? They could mean anything to anyone.”

Lorca takes a cookie of his own and sits across from her, calmly crossing his legs as she prattles nervously. It’s endearing, most of the time. To him, at least. “I wonder what your fortune says today? Go ahead and open it.” He opens his own, removing the slip of paper before he takes a bite of the crisp, slightly sweet cookie.

He wants her to…eat a cookie? She holds it up and looks at it and she just…she can’t…  
“I’m sorry, Sir…” she blurts it out, exasperated, her nerves in serious danger of overloading her system… “but what am I doing here?”

He lets his lips break into a rare smile, hoping to put her at ease. But this one doesn’t read facial signals and body language as well as the rest, or she would already be, wouldn’t she? “Relax, Cadet. This isn’t a disciplinary meeting.”

He taps a few more buttons on the smaller console on the arm of his chair, and two small bottles appear on the table beside them. Root beer, as close as the ship can get in flavor to the brand they sold in his hometown on Earth. The flavor is sweet and slightly bitter, all at once, and he nods to the other bottle as he takes another sip.

She is…way too confused…and her nerves are making her stomach lurch… The very thought of eating or drinking anything makes her feel uneasy. She considers asking for water instead, but bites her tongue.

_Use your ears, Sylvia. Sit. Still. And. Listen._

Hands in her lap, still holding her cookie, she gives him her undivided attention.

He bites the inside of his lip for a moment, wondering if he should tell Stamets that he’s discovered a way to quiet the poor thing.

_Nah._

He glances at the small white paper in his hand. “Those in positions beneath you can teach you the most.”

She’s heard another thing about fortune cookies. That you should say “in bed”’after the fortune. She remembers her brother’s raucous laughter after shouting it out after each fortune cookie. Every. Single. Time. They. Had. Them.

But this time the voice in her head is her own. _Those in positions beneath you can teach you the most… in bed._ And as soon as the thought crosses her mind, she hates herself for it, blushes instantaneously, and grabs the root beer to hide her embarrassment behind the sudden need to take a sip.

_Honestly, Sylvia!_

Even in the low light, he can see her pupils dilate slightly, and in his mind Gabriel feels like he’s just hit a homerun. “Oddly enough, Cadet, that’s why I brought you here today. I understand that you want to be captain of your own ship someday, don’t you?”

“Oh! Yes, Sir! More than anything, Sir!”

His trousers get a little snug with her earnest voice continually saying that word he holds so dear. “I would like to … take you under my wing, as it were. You are the youngest member of my crew, and I hand-selected you because of your considerable intelligence and drive. In short, I want you to succeed, just as much as you do.”

“You… want to help me… become a Captain?!”

“Of course.” He means it, too. Long ago, he learned from a greater captain than himself that the best way to lead was to raise up leaders within his own crew. Now, in times of war, that advice was never more crucial, or necessary. And this one … well, if her nerves and naiveté could be tempered, she would be one fierce woman. One he wouldn’t want to be paired against.

At first she wants to laugh at her good luck. The Captain wants to mentor her! But then reality sinks in. She’s not special. She’s not the first cadet he’s taken under his wing. She’s heard of others…lots of others…and for some reason it never lasted very long. “Oh… well… that’s very nice, Sir. Thank you.”

She sets down the bottle of pop and breaks open her fortune cookie.

 _Damn_. “Sylvia?”

Her stomach lurches at his familiarity. “Ye-e-s? Yes, Sir?”

“Whatever you’ve heard about me … some rumors have a basis in truth, don’t they?”

Now she’s confused. Rumors? What rumors? Maybe his standards were too high? Or he was too demanding of mentees? Or he lost interest? If that was the case, she might last a week before someone else caught his eye. That new guy, Ash, he seemed full of promise. Tilly chortles. “I wouldn’t know. Nobody gossips with me.” It was meant to be a joke, but the truth of that statement is oddly depressing. She looks down into her lap, brushes off the cookie crumbs that have gathered there.

“That’s a pity.” He gives her a measured glance as he takes a sip from his bottle, carefully trying to capture her gaze with his own.

She snorts, not looking up. “It’s ok, really. My mom always said… actually no… _achem_ … well anyhoo… I don’t believe in gossip. If you want to know something about someone you should just talk to them, yourself. That’s what I think.” She’s looking into her hands as she rambles.

“You misunderstand my meaning, Cadet. The pity is that ‘nobody’ seems to see the value in spending the time in getting to know you.”

At that, she looks up at him, quizzically. Nobody talks to her like this. What … what is going on?

Her eyes are deeply blue, different than his own. Innocent, wide, receptive to the world. There’s an injury there, but not the deep seated physical and emotional ones that lie behind the star-shine in his own paler, calmer eyes. “I see everything that goes on in this ship, even if the lights around me are dark. Michael Burnham is the closest person you have to a friend, even though you’ve been here almost six months.” He sets down his bottle and drops his elbows to his knees, resting his chin on the temple his fingers create. “Good choice, if you ask me.”

“Oh, well, she’s… ah-may-zing!” Tilly raises her arms while saying “amazing,” twisting her hands at her wrist so that they sort of make the word shimmer in the air. She laughs, drops her hands in her lap and sobers a little. “No, seriously, though… she’s really nice. Just misunderstood. I’m lucky she’s my roommate. I might not have a chance to get to know her otherwise.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. That’s why I assigned her to room with you.” He lazily raises an eyebrow as he pops the other half of his cookie into his mouth, and takes his time crunching into the crispy treat.

“Oh-” He…wanted them together? This entire meeting has her feeling confused. She sets the rest of her cookie, and her paper fortune, next to her pop bottle and folds her hands in her lap, waiting politely. She does not feel bold enough to ask the question she wants to know: _Why?_

“You never did tell me your fortune, Cadet. Read it to me, aloud.”

“My fortune…? Oh! Here…” She picks up her uneaten cookie half, pulls out the white paper and leans over to hand it to him, then sits back and pops the cookie in her mouth, a choice she immediately regrets, as she wasn’t particularly hungry, but at least she doesn’t have to read with food pieces stuck between her teeth.

He takes another sip of root beer and grimaces. It’s gotten warm. Two taps to the bottle refreshes it; the bottle quickly frosts again. His eyes briefly scan the slip, and he places it on the table next to him. “If you aspire greatness, cast aside the past and accept what is in your future.”

“Welf… dat one isf …” She finished swallowing then tries again, with a nervous laugh. “Sorry. That one is oddly appropriate!”

“That’s actually advice, from me to you, Cadet. Not the fortune from some random cookie.”

“Oh, ok! Well… Thanks!” Her bright-eyed disposition is finding its way out. She pauses a moment, considers everything that has happened. “I just want to thank you, Sir, for taking an interest. The ability to study under you and learn from you…well…it’s an opportunity I intend to make the most of. I won’t let you down. I want to be a Starfleet Captain more than anything in this universe or the next, and I intend to do whatever it takes to learn what I need in order to get there.”

“I’m glad to hear it. We need more bright, young starts like you who are eager to take the helm, and who want to learn.” He studies her, taking in her sweetness. “I’d like to meet with you for brief mentoring sessions once a week, as our schedules allow. I won’t keep you from your responsibilities to Lieutenant Stamets, just as you wouldn’t expect me to cancel a meeting with an Admiral. Nevertheless, I imagine there are enough hours in the week to accommodate some time for the two of us to speak, privately.”

He stands as he speaks, and walks back to the bank of windows that overlook the vast expanse of stars outside. The lights haven’t completely come up in the Ready Room, and it makes them glow even more powerfully. He looks back at Tilly and tilts his head. “Come, stand with me for a little while. Tell me what you see.”

She doesn’t know how she scored such an amazing opportunity to learn from her captain, but she intends to make the most of it. She nods when he requests weekly meetings, and walks over to him, dutifully gazing out at the stars.

The windows in her room are mere slits. She can barely squeeze into them if she wants to try and press herself up against the glass. But his windows are expansive, and there is a wide windowsill. Wide enough, at least. She could climb up and sit on it, if she wanted to.

That’s so inappropriate, though. Or it would be, under ordinary circumstances. But nothing about this engagement has been ordinary. She bites her lip, gestures to the ledge. “May I?”

He attempts to suppress the urge to smile again, then stops himself and lets it happen. “Just don’t tell anyone in Engineering.”

She snort-laughs. “No, Sir!” Then she easily hops up into the window, legs criss-crossed in front of her, and scoots as close to the glass as possible, silently peering out into space.

He chuckles, very softly, wondering what he may learn from this young sprite during their time together. On a whim, he does the same, crossing his long legs tightly as he settles onto the ledge. It’s a tight fit for both of them, and he can just feel the warmth of her body so close to his.

“Just think, Sylvia, of all the millions upon millions of stars we still haven’t seen. All the planets yet to be discovered. The universe will fold into itself before we have even travelled a tenth of it.”

She hears his words, but, honestly, listening to him is only something she’s doing to be polite at this point. She hadn’t intended to actually touch the glass, but she forgets herself and places her hands on the cool, smooth surface, sighing as she gazes out into the beyond.

“Back on earth, as a child, they let you go up into the cockpit of airplanes. I remember the first time I got to go. I was eight. It was an international flight and we were somewhere above the Atlantic, not a cloud in the sky.’

“As I stood there, suspended above the blue waters, I could see the earth curve underneath me, falling down at the horizon, like Solid Ground was nothing but a dream. It was…breathtaking.’

“And it made me realize how important one person’s perspective is.” She inches even closer to the glass, pressing her forehead against it, not unlike a little child, and looks down into the abyss of outer space. “I’m always feeling around in the dark for that curve, y’know? For the edges of understanding. For the chance to press up against the mysteries of the universe. Sure… you’re right… there’s so much we haven’t seen… too much to explore even with all the starships we could dream of building. But I think that if you allow yourself to be open enough to feel… whatever is in front of you… the universe sends you the right stars at the right time.”

He leans his head against the glass too, mimicking her actions. But instead of staring at space now, he has turned and is staring at the lovely girl sitting next to him. He almost has to resist the urge to close his mouth manually; he’s very unsure at what point during her short speech that he took on the appearance of a codfish.

This one … this one would keep him on his toes. Surprise him, constantly. He found himself wishing he had a Vulcan’s ability to meld minds; he’d love to know what exactly what lay behind the facade of nerves that hid her inner self.

But, with any luck … there were other things, earthier things that could achieve similar effects, with much more pleasurable results. “That’s --” he has to clear his throat and swallow. “That’s one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard.” He lets himself smile again, and bites his lip. “Are you sure you aren’t already an Admiral, sent to spy on me?”

The flattery and flirtation is lost on her. She responds absentmindedly, sitting back with her hands supporting her by her sides, gazing up, lost with stars in her eyes. “Mmm hmm…”

He shakes his head and continues to stare at her, absently noticing that she has a few spores clinging to her cheek. They glitter in the starlight, and for a moment he considers leaving them there.

But he can’t resist.

Slowly, and with much care, he lifts his hand to her cheek, barely brushing the backs of his knuckles against the few spores. They fall away, drifting into the air currents around them. But he gives her cheek just one more stroke, appreciating how soft her skin feels beneath the rough skin of his hand.

“What… what are you doing?” Her attention lurches to his actions. She leans away from him, pivoting her body slightly to face him better and looks him over, eyebrows raised in surprise.

He snatches his hand away, but keeps his eyes directly on hers. “You had a few spores on your cheek. Occupational hazard, I would assume. I’m sorry, that I didn’t ask for permission to touch you.”

“It’s… ok…” His words make sense, but his body language doesn’t add up. She slips out of the window and straightens her uniform.

Can she ask to leave? Would that be a red flag at this point? She knows she is historically bad at reading social situations and doesn’t want to risk upsetting her boss’s boss. So, she just stands there, hands folded behind her back and awaits his orders, trying to laugh off the incident. “Those things are like glitter. They get everywhere, and you can never get them out of your things. I’ve just gotten used to it. Permanent spore-sprinkles. Kinda like dandruff, but way cooler. Not that I’ve ever had to deal with dandruff. Although, I suppose if I had had to deal with dandruff, I’d be more self-conscious and it might actually bother me more to have spores everywhere. But luckily…”

He slides down from the windowsill too, straightening his snug jacket as he turns to face her. He’s sad that their meeting is over for the day. Her presence in this room is oddly pleasant. Especially when her words aren’t coming out all at once, as they are now. But even now, he fights with the urge to ruffle her hair, or some other nonsense that would make her more uncomfortable.

“Cadet Tilly?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“You are dismissed, at your leisure.”

Her eyebrows pinch together. She feels like she did something wrong, but she doesn’t know what. She looks over at him. He’s quiet. He’s been rather quiet this whole time. And calm. And not angry. Or mean. He’s been, well… he’s been nothing like the reputation he has around the ship for being a bastard.

Everything in her wanted to run out of the room three seconds ago, but at his dismissal, she pauses. “What did my fortune say? Did you read it? Do you remember?”

He casually walks behind his desk and rests his palms on the cool surface, taking his time before he answers. “Of course I did, and yes, I remember. Are you sure you want to know?”

She laughs, mostly at herself. “Are you kidding? I want to know everything.”

He raises an eyebrow and strokes his Tribble. “The chains that bind you can set you free.”

“The chains that… what?” That doesn’t really make any sense to her. _Ugh. These things are so cryptic._ She walks over to where he’d been sitting and picks up the paper to read it herself.

“The chains that bind you can set you free.” He sighs impatiently as he walks to where she’s standing and takes the paper from her hand. “Please don’t make me repeat myself again. Taking a verbal information is important in our line of work.”

He narrows his eyes at her menacingly, taking on his bastard appearance. “I said dismissed, Cadet. Now.”

You have to understand something about Cadet Sylvia Tilly: she is always worried about fucking up. Her whole life she has always had the purest intentions, and yet she manages to, without fail, say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. It makes her feel… wrong. Like something is fundamentally wrong with her. And that makes her feel very uncomfortable with being herself.

Always.

For a brief moment, here in her Captain’s Ready Room, she felt like herself. Genuinely like herself. At peace enough to simply be herself - to be the girl with her face pressed up against the window, staring out into the unknown. Not many people in her life have ever had a chance to see her inner self, because she rarely feels at ease enough to let it out.

Tilly typically has her armor up, anticipating any possible fuckup that she might make, because she is so used to constantly fucking up and constantly having to take great pains to just exist like a normal person in a normal way.

It’s important for you to understand all this about Tilly because you have to understand that when Captain Gabriel Lorca turned almost instantaneously on her, he wasn’t just lashing out at a Cadet, he hit her with her armor down and wounded bright-eyed Sylvia, confirming her greatest fear: that who she is at the core of her existence is someone who is fundamentally unwelcome.

She didn’t even register his actions as mean.

She took the blow. Absorbed the pain. Accepted responsibility for it, allowing it to snuff out a bit of the light inside of her that she’d allowed him to see.

“Yes, Sir.”

Her face became a mask.

She nodded, blinking back the thought of tears, her eyes instantly dry.

And she made her way to the door, let herself out, and disappeared down the hall, two steady and respectable footsteps, the kind of calm gait that would have made her mother proud.

Gabriel sits in his chair as soon as the door closes, and throws both bottles of soda against the wall.

_For fucks sake._

For the briefest moment, in this room with her, he felt …

Shit. He’d felt like a boy again. Like the wide-eyed kid who had walked into Starfleet, after leaving his father’s farm in Missouri for the first time in his life. Since then, and especially since the War started, he’s had steel around him, inches upon inches of titanium steel to keep out any emotion, other than the dream of avenging the deaths of his …

_Don’t think._

He doesn’t understand this girl at all. Not at all. And he’s always prided himself as a man who understands women … or at least the type women he wants. Ambitious women, who know they can rise with just a nod of his head in the right direction. The only other time he’s felt anything in months (years?) is when he’s had those woman in his bed, underneath him, their long legs wrapped around his torso as he loses a part of his pain inside them.

It’s important for you to understand this about Lorca, because when Cadet Sylvia Tilly walked out of the room with her head held high, even though she obviously wanted to burst into a thousand tears, he realized for the first time what this War has made him.

And at this moment, he hates himself for it.

He needs a drink. A stiff one. Immediately.

He’s off duty, as much as he can be. He rises from his chair and looks at the mess on the far side of the room. It can wait.

He straightens his jacket, acquiring his own mask of power, hiding the man beneath. As he leaves, he drops the small slip of paper.

The script is just visible as the door slides shut:

_Courtesy of Starfleet._


	2. Ensuite

Tilly is fighting back tears until she returns to her room. Michael is out, thank goodness. She shucks her jacket, shimmies out of her pants and collapses into her bed. The stress of her interaction with the Captain finally starts to unspool from her mind and body, and she curls up under her sheets and starts to cry.

How could she have been so foolish, to open up like a child?

_Oh, Tilly, what were you thinking?_

As she rehashes their interaction, running through all of the ways her behavior or words could have been different, the one thing her mind keeps skipping to is the moment when her Captain reached out to caress her cheek. It was too unexpected, and she is having trouble processing what it might mean.

Was he coming onto her?

No. Not possible. She’s just Tilly.

And he is ... _well…_

She isn’t oblivious to his many positive attributes. In fact, as an observer, she spends a lot of time watching her shipmates. And the thought _had_ crossed her mind, more than once, that the Captain was a hot piece of ass worth daydreaming about.

But, it seemed disrespectful to let her thoughts linger too long on that thought. Even so, her thoughts would return to the idea, again and again.

Now, she was having trouble shaking them.

_Forbidden fruit._

Absentmindedly, she finds her hand touching the same spot he did as she drifts off to sleep, her thoughts running through the corridors of the Discovery as if she was trying to run away from facing… _something…_

* * *

Suddenly, she’s in the open doorway of his Ready Room. There is broken glass on the floor, and he’s about to storm out. Instead, he runs into her. She blurts out, “Whoa! Wha-a-a... what happened here? Are you... are you bleeding?”

“I thought I told you to leave, Cadet.”

“I...I just forgot my…”

“What?” The door slides behind her, in a fit of pent up anger he locks it.

“Oh god... you are... you’re bleeding!”

“It’s nothing.”

“No! Here. Let me…” She has a handkerchief in her hand, and she’s waiting for permission to tend to him.

Gabriel closes his eyes and gives in. “Would it be easier if I sat?”

“Oh, yes please.”

He holds his body with tension as he walks to the chair and sits down. “Just be quick about it.”

She slides over and sits on the armrest, holding his face gingerly in her hands to keep the cut in her line of sight, and dabs at the area. “I don’t think there’s any debris in the wound, but I should clean it first to be sure.”

All her actions have been simple, methodical. It’s like she’s cleaning up her brother after one of his bar fights.

Except she’s not.

She flicks her gaze over at his expression and gulps.   _This. Is. Her. Captain._

He registers her nearness, and relaxes slightly.

_She came back._

After all that, she came back.

She’s so close to him that he can feel the heat from her body, and he notices a soft fragrance in the air around her. Even though crew members aren’t allowed to wear scent on duty, she carries a perfume of --

“Orange blossoms.”

“What’s that?”

“You smell like orange blossoms. Why?”

“I do? Oh... I…” She laughs. “It’s my hands. See? I... I just ate an orange. The citrus... it gets all over you.” She offers her hands for examination.

Gabriel Lorca has never been a man to turn down an opportunity presented to him. Lazily, he grabs her wrist and brings her hand to his nose, breathing in the fruity scent of her skin. The way that every hair on her wrist comes to attention almost makes him chuckle.

“I... I need some -- warm water.” She feels hot around the collar. Oh, god, please don’t be blushing Sylvie, please...

Warm water? He could arrange that. A hot shower, all that hair of hers all over him, it sounds like his idea of heaven. “That’s not it though. I smell oranges here, but not the flower. Why are you wearing perfume on duty?”

She’s confused. She hasn’t put on any perfume, and she didn’t even know she smells like anything. “I’m not? I’m sorry, Sir. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ll have to get to the bottom of this. It won’t do. You know how fastidious Lieutenant Stamets is. Stand at attention, Cadet. My wound can wait.”

“But, the blood, Sir…” She protests at first, but then silently obeys. Why does he make her feel like she can’t do anything right? She’s in trouble now because of how she smells?

He stands and inspects her appearance, much like an instructor would at the Academy, taking in her firm legs, curvy ass, and plentiful breasts. “Remove your jacket, Cadet.”

Her jaw drops and she looks at him in shock, not believing what he is asking of her. “Sir?”

_“Remove. Your. Jacket.”_

She looks straight ahead: embarrassed, humiliated, trying to keep her emotions in check, but her eyes are smoldering. “No.”

“No?” He raises an eyebrow and huffs out a breath. “Are you refusing an order from your Captain, Cadet? Look at me, when I speak to you.”

She turns her eyes to look at him, and she is not crying... she is not fighting back tears...

He sees the telltale sheen over her eyes, and he relents, suddenly embarrassed again by the man he’s become.

He wants her, but not like this. He wants her fighting, like before. Not breaking, like now.

“I’m a Bastard.”

She is too unnerved to know what to say, so she says nothing. Her jaw clenches as she tries to keep her breathing regulated, forcing herself to look at him like he demanded. But her anxiety is killing her, making it harder to breathe.

“I’m sorry, for scaring you.” The tension in his body releases, and he registers the sting from the cut on his head for the first time since it happened. He feels very old, very foolish, and very ...

He sits in the chair again and leans back.

“There’s an en suite off to the right. The cabinet below the sink has towels.”

“I... I think it was a mistake to come. I think I should go.” She is so confused. Conflicted. And his unpredictability is only making that worse. Part of her wants to run back to him, clean up his wound, stare into his darkness and look for starlight. But she is too young, too inexperienced, and too scared. She needs to process everything: her thoughts, her feelings...him...

She walks over to the door, but it’s locked, which does nothing to ease the adrenaline pumping through her body.

“Stay.” He looks back, but does nothing to unlock the door. “Please? Stay with me.”

“Why?” _(Why her? Why now? To what end? Why? Why was this happening? Why was she scared but not afraid? Why? Why was he looking at her? Why was he looking at her? Why her?)_

“I don’t…” Gabriel frowns, and his lips twitch as he tries to come up with the correct words to express his thoughts. He’s been lying about his emotions for so long that he’s almost forgotten how to express them. “Teach me, how to be gentle again. How to be young again, like you.”

He’s lonely.

_Oh..._

But, it’s deeper than that. It’s... it’s like an existential loneliness... like, in that moment, he’s a shriveled up version of himself.

Of course she feels compassion for him. She feels that same loneliness herself. She turned to Starfleet as a means of coping with that hole inside of her, much as she imagines he must have done so many years ago.

A puff of a laughs escapes her, despite herself. They’re the same, two sides of one coin.

“I... I can’t, Sir.” She walks over and sits across from him, apologetically.

“You can. If anyone could …” He looks at her intently.

She smiles sadly at him.

Stands.

Gathers a towel and some warm water, some supplies for cleaning and bandaging his wound.

Then she returns and sits on his armrest as before, waiting for permission to clean his cut. “May I?”

“Please.” He leans his head back again, but keeps his eyes open, watching her every move as she attends to him.

“This will probably sting a little.” After washing the area, she treats it with antiseptic, her soft alabaster hands flitting around his face, though not indulgently so. No lingering touches. And she avoids his eyes, focusing intently on her task.

But not him. He won’t stop looking at her, and she’s not sure how she feels about that.

It startles her when he speaks. “Does it need to be stitched?”

“No. The bleeding is mostly superficial.”

“No scar to mark up my old, ugly skin?”

 _Hah_. She would hardly call him ugly, but she’s not bold enough to tell him that.

She glances over at the glass on the floor, the soda dripping down the wall. Then she meets his gaze, allows her eyes to ask him what happened. If he wants to tell. It’s safer this way. She’s a little scared to say the wrong thing right now

He sees the question in her eyes, and intoxicated with her scent and nearness, he answers. “I was angry with myself, for being so rude to you. I should have -- I should have been a lot of things.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t make any difference now. You’ll never trust me again, and I’m --”

“What?” She is listening, hands in her lap

He chases the thought, remembering a line of Shakespeare he read - well, that he was made to read - when he was in school. “The dragon chasing his wrath.”

She smiles politely. “I’m not sure what that means.” Then she rises to put away the used supplies.

“I hope you never do, Sylvia.”

He watches her walk away, her movements doing things to his body that he would have to take care of later. As it was, he had to adjust himself discreetly, now that she was out of the room.

Once alone, she starts facing her thoughts. _What is she doing here? God. She has no idea. He is her Captain. And he said she didn’t trust him, but that wasn’t true. She did trust him. She trusted him implicitly. She had absolute faith in him._

_So... what had passed between them? Why had she been so scared? What was going on?_

After disposing of the utensils, she pauses for a moment, looking at herself in the mirror.

_What the fuck was going on?!?!_

She’s taking too long, and damn it, it makes him nervous.

“Cadet?” He stands and walks to the en suite, adjusting himself one more time for good measure before he walks through the small opened door.

She turns around, the sink behind her now, and faces him, her gaze involuntarily flitting down to take him in. “Yes, Sir?”

He really isn’t ugly.

_Not at all._

The room smells like him - male and musky, slightly like the clove gum he chews during simulations. But with her there, there’s a noticeable change. He likes it, and it makes him sigh slightly.

She’s so pretty, so fresh. “You’re …”

He takes a step closer, crowding her. This close, he finally can tell that the fragrance is in her hair, and before he can stop himself he’s reached around her and taken the clip from her hair, letting it loose around her shoulders.

Of all of the things she might have expected, this was not one of them. She is shocked. Instantly embarrassed. Her hair - her horrible horrible hair - falling everywhere.

_Why? Why would he..._

But he doesn’t seem malicious.

There’s a look in his eyes, and her fear from earlier is back.. She’s not afraid of him, but she is scared nonetheless. He’s so close, and she feels so exposed. She doesn’t feel in control...

She turns away, hands on the counter, and drops her chin, eyes closed. She wants to disappear.

“Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?”

She laughs. _Yeah. Sure. Whatever._

“Turn around. Please.”

“Sir?”

“I  want you to look at me.”

“Captain, please... I... I shouldn’t be here.”

“Yes, you should.”

“Look... I know I’m not beautiful. I don’t need to be beautiful. I don’t say that because I’m fishing for a compliment or feel bad about myself or anything. Objectively speaking, I am many things, and beautiful is not one of them. You don't…” She shakes her head, snort laughing... “you don’t have to say it just to make me feel better about myself, or whatever. I... whatever happened in here earlier, we can just pretend like it didn’t happen. You don’t have to make up bu--” _(don’t say bullshit to the Captain_ ) “you don’t have to make up for it. It’s just a thing. You’re my Captain. I'm a Cadet on your ship. Can we just leave it at that?”

“What if I don’t want to leave it at that?” He lifts his hand and places it on her shoulder, letting it fall into the thick mass of her hair. The coppery strands curl around his fingers as if it has a life of its own. “Would it be more objective to say: to _me_ , you are very beautiful Sylvia?”

“No!” She turns around, angry at him. “No! Just stop!”

He brings his hands to her face, caressing her cheeks with his fingers. “To me, you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Bullshit.” She pushes his hands forcefully away, offended.

_How very little she knows about men._

Her rebuttal of his emotions angers him, and without thinking he grabs her hips, for a moment enjoying the curves as he brings her body against his own. His groin hits her low, in the softness of her belly, making him even harder, and he thrusts forward ever so slightly. “Is _that_ ‘bullshit’, Cadet?” He doesn’t even have the decency not to groan or bite his lip. Not anymore.

She gasps, eyes wide.

_He...oh my god...but he...he is her Captain...he...he could with anyone...oh...what is this feeling?...he... he... he is... so much... so much more than her..._

Her cheeks grow red. But, she doesn’t push him away. Her eyes have dilated again, her cheeks livid, but not in anger, and her breaths are coming in perfectly timed pants.

 _Perfect_.

He slides his hands around to her ass, kneading the fulness that make his head spin whenever she walks by him, and presses her against him. He grows harder still, to the point of pain.

“‘Bullshit’, huh? _Hmmm_.”

“I... um... _Captain…_ ”

He lowers his head, burying his nose into her hair, letting himself get lost in her scent as he moves his hips against her, trying to entice her into a dance as old as time. He comes across a pale, freckled ear and kisses it gently before whispering, “I want you in my bed, my beautiful little one. That’s not ‘bullshit’.”

He’s...he’s serious...he’s not laughing at her...this is not a joke...

He is here. Pressed up against her. Grabbing her ass. Hard and assertive and ... oh god... his fingers in her hair... his mouth at her ear... and his words... She brings her hands up to his face, turns her head to face him, looking into his eyes, then leans forward, nose brushing up against his nose, fingers on his pulse, and lingers there with her mouth a breath away from his own. “I prefer the stars.”

She’s so close to him, but he doesn’t kiss her, not yet. Lorca is the kind of man who loves anticipation, and this moment is too perfect for him to ruin by jumping the gun too quickly. “First, you have to tell me.”

Talking. Yes. Talking is something she’s good at. Kissing? Very little experience. But talking? Talking yes. Yes. She can do that. She laughs, not moving, except to tilt her head slightly, letting her nose run along his slightly. “Yes?”

“The truth.”

“Hah. I don’t think I could lie to you even if I wanted to.”

“But you did, earlier. Didn’t you?” He rotates his hips against hers, harder this time, enough that his vision blurs slightly, even in the low light.

“Wh- what are you…” His actions are making her mind fuzzy, shooting the sensation of electricity all over her skin. The sheer forcefulness of his presence seems to be the only thing filling her consciousness at the moment. She straightens her neck away from him a little, and shakes her head, trying to focus. “What are you talking about? What do you want to know?”

He leans in closely again, his lips tickling her ear as he speaks. “That you understand that I find you to be very beautiful, Sylvia.” He kisses her ear again, nipping the lobe gently before pulling away.

“I- I-“ It’s very hard for her to accept the idea that anyone finds her attractive _because_ of her physical features, and not in spite of them. Again, she feels ashamed, loses what small amount of confidence she has mustered, and her chin drops.

He senses the change and frowns. This is going to be a hurdle to get over, because if she is with him, she is going to her him say it, often. “This is why I wanted to keep my own eyes, you know.”

“To look at women?” This doesn’t surprise her. It’s what most men would think.

He smirks. “No. Well, yes and no. I could have someone else’s eyes but …” He bites his lip and brings his face close to hers, brushes his nose against hers as she had done to him earlier. “I can see what no one else does. Beauty in things that no one else can.”

She snorts.

She can’t say what she’s thinking. It’s too snarky.

And all this talk about her appearance, it’s making her feel exposed, the center of attention, and not in a good way. She wants to be lauded for her _accomplishments,_ not examined for her genetics. “You, on the other hand... Even a blind person could tell you’re gorgeous.”

“I’m handsome, but I’m not beautiful on the inside. You’ve been the victim of that. But you...” He lowers his hand to her chest, over the area where her heart is beating as fast as a rabbit’s. “Your beauty comes from within. It’s what makes you so stunning, what makes you shine brighter than any of these stars you want to seek.”

She doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

_Victim of what? Does he mean earlier? When he chastised her and threw her out? But that was just the truth. And what is he saying now? Speaking softly? Teasing her? Is he trying to woo her?_

It seems like... It seems like rhetoric. Empty rhetoric. “If you want me for who I am, then show me who you are.  Let me chose if I want to walk away or not.”

Gabriel shakes his head. He’s done speaking. Done trying to make her understand with his words. Maybe, with his body...

He kisses her, not like the boys who have been lucky enough to be near her. His lips crush hers, and he pours out his darkness, his desire... his pain.

And it’s perfect.

 _Oh_.

The pressure. And strength. The angst and frustration of the moment all poured into one kiss, like a valve that’s been switched on just in time to release all the mounting pressure with a hiss.

She allows her hands to find his body, to wander over his shoulders, his chest.

His hands are in her hair, tangling in the thick mass of curls, and it’s glorious. He needs to feel it on him, on his skin, and just the thought makes his hips buck sharply.

Oh god… His bucking is driving her up a wall, but it’s not hitting the right spot. The room is so tiny, but in fact that’s perfect. Hands around his neck, lips locked on his, she leans back, lifts one leg and perches up on the toes of her other foot, trying to slide her ass over the rim of the counter.  But she’s too short. She can’t quite make it...

Without breaking the kiss, he slides his hands out and away from her hair, down her chest and sides, and with ease lifts her up on the counter.

_Fuck._

Her heat is against his groin, and it’s so delicious that he dips his tongue into her mouth, tasting flavor of oranges.

She moans.

His hands go to his jacket, unzipping it quickly. It drops to the floor with no sound at all, and when it does he busies himself with hers, helping her free her arms from the sleeves.

“Don’t stop. Please.”

He looks at her, really looks at her, and smugly smiles. Male pride is a heady thing, and knowing how responsive she is to him, makes him grin even more. But, he doesn’t kiss her, not yet. Instead, he grinds his groin against her, letting her feel him, while cupping her breast, feeling a very tight nipple under a thin bra. He squeezes it, gently at first, then more firmly.

_Jesus. Fucking. Christ._

Eyes closed, she moans, leans back, unsteadily.

Hands shaky, she releases his hips, tries to find purchase with her palms, and fumbles around until she settles for pressing between the cabinet walls that enclose the area of this counter and sink. She presses herself between them once… Twice. And then in rhythm, providing resistance against the rhythm he is working between her legs.

More.

 _NOW_.

She needs to come, now, or he’s going to come in his pants like a kid, and that cannot happen.

“Look at me.”

She can’t. Her eyes are shut, her chin lifted up, shoulders slack. She presses her hands against the cabinets as her body hitches up on its own accord, as he grinds into her with increasing force.

_She- she- she can’t- oh god- oh god- she- she- she- Oh my god!_

The hum in the back of his throat is a happy one, as he watches her come apart in his arms. Her skin glows as she trembles, and her lips turn a vibrant shade of crimson. He slows his movements as she comes down from the high, working every last quake from her as she shakes in his arms.

Now she looks at him. And she grabs his shirt in her fist and yanks him toward her as she meets him halfway for a passionate kiss, wrapping her arms around him.

He meets her kiss for kiss, giving the passion and desire as much as he gets it. The air around them is thick with the scent of her arousal and his sweat, and a bed would be more comfortable, but .... His hands reach for his belt and he undoes it, unzips his pants. The release of pressure is EVERYTHING, and his cock springs out from within, happy to be free from the very snug space.

She wraps her legs around his body, holding him close to her with her thighs as she continues to kiss him, opening her lips. Their tongues meet and tangle briefly, but all too quickly he gets sidetracked at nibbling her full lips, moving to her neck. He spends his time here, until he finds a spot that makes her thighs tighten like vices around him.

“Oh god!”

His hands go to the buckle and zip of her pants. “Are you ready?”

“Are you kidding?” She pulls on his undershirt, trying to extract it from his body, but gets distracted when she pulls it up and over his chest. “Jesus Christ!” She bends over and kisses his body, over his heart, and her lips start to wander.

 _Fuck_ that feels good.“You don’t... Sylvia, I…”

“Shut up, pretty boy.” She kisses him again, holding him snug against her with her thighs as she grinds against him. Oh god. She is Hungry. She needs this, has needed this. She doesn’t even know how bad.

Then she unzips her own pants.

God she smells good. He wants to bury his head between her thighs and breathe in before giving her pleasure with his mouth.

 _There isn’t time... To take the pants off... Oh god…_ She wraps her hand around his cock and pumps him once in anticipation, let’s her mouth wander down to his neck where she starts kissing and nibbling. Then she pulls on his cock with one hand and bites his neck. Hard.

 _FUCK_.

His eyes are wide open, and he’s torn between wanting to laugh out loud, spank her, and come in her tiny, white hand. He chooses neither, and lets himself enjoy the sensations, all of them, sighing as he surrenders to her.

She needs to find a way to get her pants off, but can’t lose contact...

_Can’t stop...god.... his skin under her lips...there is no way in hell she's letting that go…_

She lavishly kisses the spot where she bit him, abandons his cock for a brief moment and runs her hands up his arms as she moves her mouth to his ear, huffs once, warmly, and whispers. “Rip my pants.”

Then, fingers lingering gently at his shoulders, she bites him again. On the neck. _Hard_.

His lips twitch, as do his fingers. And, just to show her who is still in charge, he grabs her shirt at the neck and pulls the heavy cotton so hard that it rips in two. His eyes flick down to her breasts, and his breath stills as he licks his lips.

 _No_.

That is not what she asked for.

She digs her fingers into his upper arms, secures herself against him with her thighs and legs, ankles locked behind him, and bites again. Harder.

He grunts, and wonders how he’ll explain the bruises when he goes in for his physical tomorrow.

_No matter._

He takes the lace bra, not Starfleet issue by any means, and rips it too, but doesn’t toss it away like he did her shirt. Instead, he wrestles her arms away from him, behind her back, and uses her bra to bind her hands.

He looks at his work and likes it, especially the view it gives him of her breasts.

“Now... Ask me nicely, Sylvia.”

She had struggled when he tied her hands away, but—dammit—her arms were never very strong. Definitely no match for his upper body strength.

_God. His—FOCUS TILLY—_

He’s wasting time, stuck on some stupid power trip like an IDIOT when he could already be _FUCKING HER..._

She smiles sweetly, leans in and sighs, forehead pressed against him ( _god he’s so fucking hot_ ) and she says, in the sweetest voice, “Rip my pants, you fucking idiot.”

Then she head-buts him.

_That. Little. Bitch._

It doesn’t hurt as bad as she thought it would, but the fact that the little hellion did it makes him want to…

“By all means, you impatient hellion.”

He rips her pants, right from her body, taking a tiny pair of knickers with them. Ignoring the victorious look on her face, he descends to his knees and yanks her legs open, and hungrily presses his lips to hers.

“Oh... _GOD!_ ”

Legs now free, she bends her knees, brings her heels up to the counter and perches there, leaning back against the mirror in that narrow space, hands supporting her against the cabinets again, granting him absolute access to her cunt.

She’s wonderfully wet from her previous orgasm. The flavor of her hits his mouth, and he moans as he sucks, the small room filled with the lewd sounds. It turns him on, arouses even more desire from his overstimulated mind, and as carefully as he can he strokes himself as he eats her out, his free hand playing with her pussy, fingers gliding in and out as his mouth works her clit.

_“Fuck! YES! Ooooohmygawd... yes  YES YES. YES!!!!!”_

Her entire body is flush as she gives herself over to the pleasure and fills his ensuite with her screams. And, as her arms are pressed against the cabinets, her breasts sag and sway with her ecstasy, her entire body aglow in a sheen of sweet sweat and desire.

He stops, abruptly, just before her pleasure reaches its absolute peak, and stands, slowly removing the rest of his clothes.

 _Oh God…_ She is about to complain, but then she sees what he’s doing. She bites her lip, and lowers her hand to pleasure herself while she watches him, knees still raised, beautifully exposed to him.

 _Well how did that happen?_ He muses thoughtfully, watching her as she rubs her clit, wondering how on Earth she got her hands free. He’s prized himself with his knots, and while she should be able to free herself ... it’s shouldn’t have been that easy. “Give me your hands, Cadet.”

With a smile, she shakes her head, extending one leg to wrap around his hips and pull him towards her. While his gaze falls down to her movement, she swiftly flings the bra over his head, fisted in both hands, and pulls, yanking him flush against her.

Faces so close, so full of desire, she grins, while not letting up on the tension she is using to hold him there, but curling the binding tighter over her grip. Not offering him her hands for even a second, she smiles devilishly. “Yes. Sir.”

His cock is against her, and as much as he wanted to draw this out… He takes it in hand and feels for her entrance, rubbing himself on her slick all the while.

The teasing aggravates her. She wants to force herself down over him in one swift motion, but refrains. She brings her mouth to his ear, closes her eyes and speaks softly, huskily. “Do you feel that? With all your darkness? Do you feel yourself pressed up against the glass? The world falling down around you, hoping, desperately, for it to curve?”

She brings her hands to his shoulders, holding herself against him, and rakes her body against his, allowing her breasts to rub against his chest, allowing her folds to slide along his length.

She speaks again, looking into his impossibly blue eyes. “Because if it curves, it means there is solid ground. If it curves, maybe gravity will pull us down. But if it doesn’t... if... if it doesn’t…” She is finding a rhythm against him, and it’s making it harder not to pant...it’s making it harder to speak...

Madness, this is utter madness. But he wants to live in the madness with her, fucking her until she screams, until the room smells of blood and sweat and saliva… and all the delicious things in between.

He dips his cock in, just an inch, just enough that he can feel her wet, hot walls clamp around him in welcome, then pulls out.

She is no longer sliding her body against his. There’s something deeper running through them, and she needs to jump down the mine shaft and see where it leads.

He needs her to see him, to pull his hair down and bury her face in his tangles... he needs her to see him, to truly see him, and to know that she does.

The bra she’d been wearing is utterly demolished at this point. She loosens it and brings it up to his neck, wrapping it around him once.  Holding her hands against his throat, applying pressure, she looks at him with gentle eyes. “You have to face the truth: that you’re always alone.” She waits, firmly, kindly, to see how he reacts.

He stills.

This is the only time he _doesn’t_ feel alone.

_Yet, why does he feel so empty?_

What does… He slides in, further, groaning as he sheathes himself halfway. “What do you want from me, Sylvia? To admit that I’m a fuck-up, while I’m inside you?” He slides in the rest of the way, roughly, until he can feel her cervix against the tip of his cock. “I’m a fuck-up. I’m alone.” He thrusts, angrily, trying to hurt her. “Even now.”

Her hands are gentle but firm on his throat. She doesn’t try to hurt him. Even when he is trying to hurt her, she doesn’t retaliate.

She just takes it.

As he thrusts into her, her eyes flutter closed, and she arches her back, feeling the full weight and power of his presence inside of her. Mouth slightly open, chin up, he elicits soft moans with each thrust. And her vagina clenches around him, meeting his anger with a mind of its own.

He watches her, wanting to bruise her as much as she has bruised him with her words, but ... He stops, gentles himself, moves his hands to her face and tilts it so that their eyes meet. “What do you want from me?”

She flowers under his touch, responding to his body on such a primal level. She nuzzles her cheek into his hand. “I never said you were a fuck up.” She keeps her hands at his throat and rubs her thumb against his artery, affectionately. “I just want you to be: you. And let me decide if I want to leave or stay.”

“But I am what I am.” He moves again, clumsily as his hands are on her face, but somehow that’s right. Not to be the perfect skilled lover he’s always been, not with her. “And you choose to stay.”

“Yes.”

She rewards him by pulling herself up and then sheathing herself again on his cock, raking her breasts over his chest in the process, and her lips at his neck, she tenderly kisses the spots where she'd bitten him.

Her tenderness undoes him.

Gently, more gently than he has ever been with a woman, he glides his hands over her throat - not feeling the need to squeeze or tease a reaction. He lets his hands roam over her body, down to her soft hips, and he settles into a slow rhythm that suits him. He takes time to feel her, inside and out, as he arches his neck against her lips.

She has always trusted him. Always had absolute faith in him, perhaps more faith than even he has in himself.

Perhaps it's naivete.

Perhaps it's foolishness.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's faith, the real kind, the kind that remains strong in the face of unbearable doubt.

Whatever the case, she gives herself over to him, surrenders to his affections, falling apart in his hands as he rises into her again and again.

“I’m not alone, am I?” He grunts the words, in time with the thrusts of his hips against hers. His body is slick with sweat; hers is too now, and the room is so small…

“Captain--” She unwraps the binding from his neck so that she can free her hands, entirely, allowing the slight fabric to drop unnoticed while she runs her hands slowly, purposefully, firmly over his body, as he rides into her, making her feel like she will explode.

She looks at him, holds his gaze, bobbing in time with his thrusts, and she releases the truth she was trying to help him see from the start. “You are never alone. You... you were never alone... You... Ohhh... _I can't_ …” It's too much. She's close to coming again, her vagina clasping him like a vice, rhythmically pumping him as he pumps into her.

“You’re with me, inside my heart.” It’s the closest he can manage, to admit that he cares about anything. He grunts and swears softly, adding something more. “Your goodness -- inside me.   _Sylvia…_ ”

“No…” She's arguing with him, but she's not upset.

She's riding the waves of ecstasy, mounting with the exquisite pleasure of the moment into a place beyond words. But she dips her mind back into this plane, just for a moment longer, just for the sake of words.

“You have you. Yourself.” She grasps him, shakes his shoulders a little to draw attention to his corporeal form. “You are enough.”

He comes when she speaks, trembling violently as the words wash over him. The pleasure is as intense as pain, like electric shocks firing throughout his entire body.

“ _Sylvia_ ... _please_ ...” His cock jerks inside her, but he keeps moving, still hard, still... _still_...

Her hands travel to his face, gently cupping his cheeks, and she peppers him with kisses: on his lips, his nose, his jaw, everywhere, all the while repeating the refrain:

_“you are enough_

_you are enough_

_you are enough_

_you are enough_

_you are enough_

_you are enough_

_you are enough_

_you are enough_

_you are enough”_

He’s crying.

“Sylvia... you…” He buries his head into the crook of her neck, his face lost in the perfume of her messy, tangled hair. He feels...

He _feels_.

“Shhhh…” she slips off the counter, pulling him into her arms, as she slides down onto the floor, giving him the space and support he needs.

And her mind is lurching.

How? How did she find herself here? Is this even real? Because it feels more real than being awake.

_He never cries, not since he was a boy.  How is this even.. He NEVER cries!_

Gabriel wants to be in her arms, and struggles with the anger that wants to rise at being seen while he is so vulnerable. He’s the fucking Captain of this ship, he’s done so many fucking awful things in the name of duty.

Pushing all other thoughts aside, she recognizes how important this moment is. She is fully in the moment, fully here for him.

He grabs her blindly, wishing he was still inside her, missing the connection, and she does not fight. Not in the least. But, instead, touches him tenderly and affectionately, opening herself to him, allowing him to guide her.

“It's okay.”

He nods, unable to speak anymore, unsure of what might happen if he did. Instead of speaking, he guides her on top of him --

_How am I still hard?_

_-_ \- and nudges against her until he’s back where he needs to be. There’s sweet relief there, in her warmth -- physically feeling her emotional self. Her inner self.

As he seems to find his peace, find his rhythm, she starts to realize how tense she has been, how much she has been fighting to get to this point, and how tired it has made her body.

 _No_.

She bites her lip, pushing the exhaustion away.

No, she's not ready for this moment to end. Sweetly, slowly, she rises and falls, feeling the fullness of his body inside of hers, eyes closed, chin up, hands resting lightly on his shoulders.

_Yes... yes... always... yes ..._

He’s past the point of anger, of madness, of everything. And he .... just ....

“Hmm... can you?...” she mumbles.

“Hmmm?”

“I need you to -- ” Her shoulders sag a little, and she kisses him sweetly on the lips.

“What’s wrong?”

She laughs, “I don't want to stop, but I need you to take over.” She bites her lip, nervous to admit her vulnerability even now.

“Here, lie next to me, and we can --” He swallows. “I can, from behind ... if you ...?”

“I'd rather look at you. This time. If that's ok?”

He blushes, then nods as he scans the room, thinking of logistics, quickly assessing the room. “Good old missionary style, then?”

“I'm sorry, is it too…?” She bites her lip again. She worries that it's not kinky enough, especially after everything else that has passed between them.

“Not at all.” He smiles as he speaks, and smooths a strand of hair out of her face. “It’s a classic for a reason.”

She has been pouring herself out for him, and now? Now she needs him to gather her back together.

In this moment, everything seems so unreal. She just can't escape how uncanny it is to talk to him, in the middle of lovemaking, as if everything that happened here was the most natural thing in the world. That feeling of belonging… She wasn't ready to accept it, but she can accept this moment, with him.

“What is it?” He’s playing with her hair, mindlessly making the curls bounce around her breasts as he stares into her fathomless eyes. “Is something wrong”

“Can't you sense it?” She touches his face, sighs. “I want this to be real. And I feel like it is. But  there's something that seems...” She runs her hand over his skin. It seems real. It does.

“What’s more real than this? He thrusts again …”

_How is he still hard?_

He frowns.

“Sylvia?”

“Please… Call me Sylvie.”

“Sylvie.”

He likes it, the way it rolls off his tongue. “You don’t have to call me Captain, or Sir, either.” He muses on who he was once, before all this. “I’m just Gabe.”

She blushes at the familiarity. “Are you sure, Sir?”

Even now, on the floor, naked, tangled in his arms, she is still that same Cadet, so full of respect and honor for Starfleet command.

“Say my name, Sylvie. I want to hear it. No one has called me that since…” Not even Katrina. “A very long time.”

“Ok,” she gulps. “Gabe.”

“Nice to meet you, Sylvie.” He raises his hand, playfully shaking hers.

She laughs.

“Hi. Gabe. The Big "GL". Did anyone ever shorten your name like that?  Probably not. Gabe already has a nice sound to it, unless of course --”

“Of course ....?”

She laughs, “It's not important.” Gabe. She smiles, again, then tugs on him. “I want you at least twice before I wake up. Do you think you can oblige?”

“By all means.” He winks at her and thrusts again. “It seems like I can stay hard all night... “

_How is he still hard?_

She leans back on the floor, and it's surprisingly soft. “Please, Gabe.  Make love to me.”

“All night.” He slides into her, loving the feel of her around him, loving feeling her beneath him. The way she looks at him now adoringly, it’s almost like a... like a...

“ _Ohhhh..._ ” she arches her back, the excitement mounting inside of her again. She's never had a dream this real.

“Classics never go out of style, do they?” He laughs and kisses her, wondering when he’s ever been able to be this real with a woman. He must be dreaming.  Fuck, if he is, he doesn’t want to wake up.

“Shut up, pretty boy,” she smiles, teasing him with her words from earlier, and pulling his lips to hers for a kiss.

He colors, but not in anger. “You’re pretty, too. One day, when we’re awake, you’ll admit it.”

“Just feel me? I want to remember how your hands feel. Always.”

“I feel you. There? Or there?”

“Everywhere... everywhere... everywhere. I want you everywhere. I... I don't want this to end…”

“Who says it has to …”

She starts to cry, “Don't you dare stop!”

“I’m still here ... Sylvie?”

“Please... make love to me... like we have all the time in the world.”

He thrusts hard, leisurely, drawing out every single moment that he can.

“Yes! _Oh yes..._ ”

“Sylvie...  please…”

_How is he still hard?_

She feels everything inside of her shake and implode and turn molten down to the core. “Gabe, please. I’m almost there!”

He thrusts harder, faster.  “I want to see you... so beautiful... please…”

She's so close, so torturously close. She looks in his eyes and it scares her. Here she is, pressed up against his darkness, and all she can see are infinite stars.

Her entire body shakes and explodes and becomes nothing but a bundle of raw nerves hitched incomprehensibly to his heart.

He feels Her.

 _Her_.

No longer her, Cadet, that Tilly girl ... she is Her and she is His ...

He comes, too, as soon as she does, and somehow he’s no longer Gabe, no longer Lorca, no longer himself. He is Her and She is Him. Dark and Light, creating a new self.

“I... Wow.”

“Wow.”

She laughs. “Fucking awesome, huh?”

She kisses him softly, curling into his arms. “Be nicer to me, ok? On the other side? I feel _everything_.”

“Only if you’ll stop rambling about _everything_.”

She laughs, “I can't. It's biologically impossible.”

“Don’t go.”

She laughs again, holds his face and examines every detail. “Where would I go?”

“Please.”

“You're never alone. You know that... right? You are enough.”

“Sylvie, please. Don’t go. Please? I need you …”

She smiles effortlessly, “You have everything you need. It's ok. You're ok.’

“ _Gabe_ …’

_“You're ok…”_

* * *

 

He wakes suddenly, though not grabbing his phaser, as he normally would. The pillow underneath him is wet, and his sheets are ...

“Computer, lights.”

His sheets are a mess. He’s had a wet dream, like a damn kid.

Then memory rushes him, every detail of the dream. His entire body melts back into the bed. He can’t even move, can’t think, and doesn’t notice the curling red hair floating in the air next to him.


	3. No-win scenarios and hopeless causes

She can’t really explain why she does it. Typically she showers first thing in the morning. But not today. She put it off, waited until 1900 hours, then slipped into the bath, with plenty of time to not only get clean, but also shave and wash her long curly hair with her orange blossom shampoo.

She can’t really explain why she sat on her bed, at 2030 hours, fully dressed and perfectly pressed and presentable, peeling an orange and savoring each citrus slice. Or why she barely rinsed her hands after, so that the smell lingers.

She knows where she got the idea. From her dream. But it’s so foolish.  _ Dammit, Sylvie, _ it’s so goddamn  _ dumb _ . She pulls up the dream dictionary she’d bookmarked earlier in her PADD.

**_Sex_ ** _ : _ _  
_

_ To dream about sex refers to the integration and merging of contrasting aspects of yourself. It represents psychological completion. You need to be more receptive and incorporate aspects of your dream sex partner into your own character. _

The guy you fuck in your dream is just a projection of a part of your psyche. And dream sex isn’t about sex; it’s about merging different parts of your identity, about growing and changing. And it makes perfect sense, really: this is an excellent opportunity to learn, firsthand, from her Captain and hone her skills so that she might have a ship of her own someday.

So why did her mind keep wandering back to the memory of how he thrusted so angrily into her, while his heart was breaking wide open and so much sadness and tenderness poured out of him?

_ Oh god… _

Her hips squirm a little just thinking about it. It had been… the best sex dream she’d had… in a long time. But it was just a goddamn dream. Just a dream. And she needed to keep her emotions in check this evening. This was, after all, her Actual Captain she was about to meet, and not some idealized version of him.

2040 hours 

_ Ugh. Really, Sylvie… this… this is ridiculous… this really won’t do. _

She locks the door, slips out of her pants and takes care of the longing that has cropped up between her legs. There’s time. She has time. She can- oh- oh god- oh god she’s going to see him again- and she can’t- she can’t- she can’t be thinking- OH GOD- she can’t be this horny in his office… she just can’t!

In no time, her uniform is unbuttoned and she’s rubbing her nipples while she strokes her clit, shuddering into stitches of pleasure as she holds his name in her mind:  _ Gabe _ .

_ Almost  _ 2100 Hours

Gabriel paces in his Ready Room. 

**_Fuck_ ** **.**

Officially, he’s only been there for 15 minutes, supposedly reviewing reports and planning out his recording for the Daily Log. 

Unofficially…

It’s not per his tightly monitored schedule, and Saru has been quizzically checking in on the Comm, but he’s been here over an hour. 

Scanning, mostly. Trying to figure out…

It was real, wasn’t it?

He scrubs his face with his hands, cringing when he feels stubble against his palms. He’d love to shave, but there’s no time for that now.  Even though he doesn’t want to look unkempt, he’s run out of time and …

_ FUCK. _

He walks to the en suite, thinking he’ll find a trace of her there. But of course, just like every other time he’s checked, it is exactly the same. It smells of him, and only him. There’s no trace of oranges… no sex permeating the air.

“I really am losing my mind,” he groans. 

Katrina was right. Katrina was usually right, but he was so sure that he was really in control.

Gabriel leans against the wall of the small room, wanting the feel her warmth in there with him.

“Captain?” His computer’s voice is loud and hollow in the quiet room.

“Yes?” 

“At 2100 hours you had an appointment scheduled with Cadet Sylvia Tilley. It is now 2101, and she has not arrived. Would you like me to reappropriate your time?”

_ Red _ . 

He sees red, and not the color of her beautiful hair.

2100 Hours

_ She’s late. _

She’s never late.

_ shit shit shit shit shit Shit SHIT! _

She started getting ready TWO HOURS ago!  _ Wha-a-at the fuckkkkk Sylvie?!?! _

It’s just… she was so worked up… and one orgasm kept folding into another, and another, and by that time if she didn’t finish she knew she’d be even worse than when she started… so she just kept coming…  _ what was WRONG with her?! _ ... And then the mess afterwards. She didn’t have time to shower, again, and had to hastily towel herself down, slip into her uniform and give her appearance a once over before bolting out of her room and running, for a second week in a row, through the hallways towards her Captain’s Ready Room. 

_ shitshitshitshitshitshitSHIT _

2103 Hours

Cheeks flush, she arrives at the door and tries desperately to catch her breath.  _ Be more receptive. Incorporate aspects of him into your own character. Ok, dream-self. Got it! _

Chin up, unapologetic, she speaks in an even tone, “Computer, let him know I’m here.”

“Captain, Cadet Sylvia Tilly has arrived.”

Gabriel takes a deep breath. Then another. He looks in the mirror and sees a tired, angry old man staring back at him.

_ Fuck _ .   _ It’s not like it was real… just keep going. _

He smiles, cruelly, watching his thin lips draw back over his teeth. “Then, by all means. Let. Her. In.”

The door opens, and she enters the room. It's dark, as usual, and her eyes take a moment to adjust while she tries to pin down his location.  _ Where is he?  _ She stands at attention, silhouetted by the light of the corridor until the door slips shut.

“Reporting for duty, Sir.”

Every nerve in his body jumps to attention when he hears her voice. He grips the edge of the counter and jumps, away from it, remembering…

_ Just a dream, Gabriel.  _

“Sir?” She raises her voice slightly.  _ Where is he? _

“Cadet Tilly?” he asks, not leaving the safety of the room just yet. “Did you finally decide to grace me with your presence?”

_ Is he in the en suite? _

Thank god the lights are low and he is not within earshot, because she holds her breath for a beat. Thank god she relieved her pressure from before and is able to center herself and keep a steady head.

“Yes.”

He remembers her saying that word -- moaning it, mixed with his na-

“You’re late,” he says, almost barking out the words.

“I am.”

“That’s not acceptable, for a potential Command Candidate. Aren’t you aware?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He grips the sink harder, until he’s afraid he might break his fingers, then suddenly relaxes. Methodically, he unclenches his jaw and stands, straightening his jacket before he walks out into his Ready Room.

“Then make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Yes, Sir.”

She stares straight ahead into the darkness. She can’t make out anything more than his silhouette, but it’s not like she’s going to spend too much time looking at him, anyways. And for what? Why would she need to look at his face? She doesn’t. Cadets don’t need to see their Captain’s faces, they just follow orders. Blind Cadets don't need to look at anyone. Starfleet still accepts applicants with all types of disabilities. People who can’t walk. People who are deaf. So the fact that she is simply not looking at one person's face in what is, quite frankly, an unnecessarily dark room, is really no big deal at all.

“Computer, bring up lights following Program 1569-34.” He needs to see her. In this light, even though it’s the most comfortable, he can only make out the barest outline of her curvy shape, and he needs to see. If she’s real.

The lights swiftly come up, more swiftly than what he should have asked for, and he winces, unable to see anything until his eyes adjust completely.

She winces when he does, her attention flashing to him instantaneously as she readjusts her posture, ready to assist. “Are you ok?”

“My eyes, I just need --“ 

An Optho-Pen is in his pocket, and he grabs it, then leans against the wall to inject himself with the healing anesthetic. The medicine stings at first, it always does, making his world even blurrier for a moment until he can comfortably adjust to the light.

_ Choose your pain. _

Choose it, indeed.

It’s odd, seeing him so vulnerable, because it feels, intuitively, like she is in front of the man she dreamt about, not the cold and distant boss who essentially threw her out on a whim 24 hours ago. Her eyes flash to the wall where the drinks had been smashed in her dream, but there’s not a trace of them. And why would there be? There’s no cut on his forehead, either. And no reason for him to bleed. 

Because none of it happened.

She shakes her head, trying to focus her attention on reality.

“Permission to speak freely, Sir?”

“Granted.”

She stands, posture at attention, showing him the respect any Cadet should show her Captain, and her face is animated while she tells her story.

“When I was little, my Grandpa Rick, on one hand he only had four fingers. His second finger, the ring finger, it was just a stub, at the first knuckle. We used to call it ‘Stubby’ and laugh about it.’

“Grandpa Rick told us how he fought in the old war, how he watched men die around him, but he made it out without a scratch. And then, one day, he was sitting at home cleaning his gun, and he forgot to check and make sure it wasn’t loaded. There was a loud bang. My grandmother came running. The wall was covered in blood, and he was sitting there, shocked, his finger blown clear off.’

“He never stopped feeling his finger. Even years after the wound healed, he’d still get these… episodes… where it would hurt so ba,d and there was nothing he could do to treat the pain because the finger was just… gone.”

She pauses, takes a gulp.

He huffs, and fights back the urge to ...

_ Rage. _

**_STOP._ **

“I have my eyes, Cadet. Are there suddenly sockets where they were before?”

Her eyebrows pinch together, and she loses her nerve.

“No, Sir. Sorry, Sir.”

Nobody cares, Tilly. Especially not your Captain. She had more to say, but she lets it go, folds the chastisement into her behavioral expectations for their interaction, breathes through her nose once, and reasserts her standard posture, waiting at attention.

He looks at her, his vision now cleared, and knows he’s hurt her. He can feel it, palpable, almost as much as he feels his own pain every moment of every waking hour of every day.

_ Bastard. _

The breath he’s been holding hisses from his lips like the prairie wind, and Gabriel sags slightly against the wall, letting it support his weight. If he could do something right by her, consistently... do right by  _ anyone _ consistently ...

“Continue.”

“It’s ok, Sir. It...“ she shakes her head at herself, trying to shake off her embarrassment, “it’s probably stupid.’

“We are still studying Lieutenant Stamets’ reaction to having the spores injected into his system. It’s… really cool, actually… how his body is processing the new agent on a cellular level. There are some odd energy readings that we are still trying to quantify, but since no one has ever even attempted what he did before... it just,” her excitement is palpable, and she breaks out into a genuine smile. “It’s just so amazing to be experiencing the new discoveries first hand.”

Gabriel nods and attempts to smile. “Stamets was very brave, doing what he did.” He glances at her and narrows his eyes, though not with anger this time. “Don’t you dare repeat that, Cadet.”

She gives a curt nod. “Understood, Sir.”

His eyes still ache, and he give himself a second injection in each, hoping for final relief this time. Glad he can’t see her face while he’s like this, he grimaces dramatically and closes his eyes, blocking her completely until the pain subsides.

“Your grandfather... Rick?”

She had hoped they could move on. Her over-personal anecdote feels so foolish now. She sighs, shoulders slumped. He’s not going to let it go.

“I was just going to say, there’s two kinds of hurt. Well… there’s probably many more. But… anyways...” Focus Tilly. “Grandpa Rick felt pain over a finger he lost and could never get back. And that pain never went away. But you didn’t lose your eyes. It’s a different kind of hurt. Because you’re healing.”

“They  _ aren’t _ healing,” he clarifies. He opens his eyes are looks directly at her, no longer in pain, and sees her very clearly. “You don’t know what happened to my last ship -- my last crew -- do you?”

She furrows her eyebrows, shakes her head: no.

It’s about time she knew. The fact that she doesn’t surprises him somewhat; he doesn’t take Tilly for a girl who misses much. And the few who know the exact details... well, there are few real secrets aboard this ship.

“Then you might want to sit. It’s not a long story, but it’s also not one that’s easy to take standing up.”

She nods. Complies. Hands in her lap.

He looks at the chair across from her, remembering their exchange from the previous week, while drinking cold sodas. 

This time however, he needs a drink, a real one.

“You don’t drink Scotch, do you?”

She doesn’t really know if she drinks Scotch or not, but now is definitely not the time to find out.

“I could really use a water, actually. If that’s ok. But you can drink... it’s ok... not that I have to give you permission or anything... I just... I don’t mind if you drink when I don’t is all.”  _ Less extraneous words, Tilly. Less! Extraneous! Words!!! _

“Tilly, if anyone needed a Scotch it’s you.’ He walks to the synthesizer first. “Spring water with ice.”

“Hydrating spring water, Captain.”

The item appears, and he takes it to the Cadet, sitting it on the table next to her. Then he moves on to his desk, opening a cabinet to reveal his ancient, precious bottle of real Scotch. Not the stuff the synthesizer makes; the kind that was made with old barrels and time. He pours a few inches in one of the glasses he keeps with it and brings it to his lips, drinking one sip slowly.

She holds the icy glass between her hands, and after a moment lifts her chilled palm up to her neck and presses it back behind her ear, tilting her head ever so slightly as her eyes unfocus, and she enjoys the cool relief. It is nice to just sit still for a moment, waiting for him to get his drink, waiting for him to say his piece. She doesn’t feel at ease, necessarily. But the glass in her hands gives her something to focus on.

"I killed my crew."

“You... what?”

Her hand drops into her lap. Holding the glass is merely a reflex now. His words are so shocking; it must be rhetoric. He must mean something else.

She searches his face for answers.

" _ I killed my crew. _ "

She sets her glass down, and gives him her full attention.

Gabriel takes another drink, a bigger one, enough that he has to almost choke back the potent liquor. Warmth buzzes through his brain, gives him the courage he needs to talk about the worst day of his career, and his life.

Despite himself, his legs start to tremble, and, determined to keep the appearance of the most powerful man on this ship, he walks to the chair across from her. The motion surely hides the slight tremor; if anything, it makes him feel more assured to assume his confident stride and take his chair.

"How did you fare with the Kobayashi Maru?"

“It’s a stupid exercise,” she mumbles, looking into her hands.

"Really?" He almost laughs. "Is that why you're assigned to Stamets and not the bridge?"

“They don’t even have names.” She looks up, angrily. “If you’re supposed to care about this crew enough to die for them, you’d think they’d at least give them names.”

Then she realizes she’s blurted this out to her Captain and forces herself to sober up.

“Names,” he says, to himself more than her. His lip quivers, and he bites it, not wanting the litany of names that are tattooed on his soul to start pouring out of his own mouth.

There is a pause in the air, and -- while she doesn’t feel burdened to fill it -- she feels… it is the right thing to do this time. Not speaking out of nerves, but... opening herself, as he seems to be trying to do.

( _ Is this what mentoring is supposed to look like?  _ She shakes off the nagging voice and focuses on her words.)

“It’s a horrible exercise, to begin with. And I could almost accept that it’s necessary, within the greater context of Starfleet academy. But if the point of the Kobayashi Maru is that it’s supposed to give you the opportunity to face certain loss, it seems heartless to not account for what one should do when they survive certain loss.”

She gulps, staring at her hands.

“I tried the exercise. Studied it. Talked to others. And when I finally came to accept that I could not save anyone, I asked myself: What next? What impact would these losses have? Who died? Who were their families? What change were they meant to make in the world?’

“Nothing.”

He lets the room fill with silence as he ponders her words. 

Once was all he'd had in the simulator. Even as a Cadet, Gabriel has been calm, cool, and level-headed when it came to difficult decisions, and his decision to let the people on the ship die had not even mattered to him. It was what felt right, a necessary evil. One that needed to be done to keep the galaxy safe. He'd never considered anything she spoke of then, at her age.

Now, though...  _ now _ ...

"I was faced with an impossible choice, when I was Captain of the USS Buran: watch them be tortured, murdered... give them to a fate worse than death, or I could spare them that fate and take it on myself. But the price to spare them would be their lives, taken by my own hand, at my decision."

She looks up from her hands, regards him carefully.

“Did you make the right choice?”

He takes another drink, finishing the glass. 

"Yes."

They sit in silence for a moment, as if in honor of the dead. As she absorbs the shock of such a loss, a wet sheen builds on her eyes and an aching pit grows in her heart. It’s… it’s the saddest thing. Immeasurably sad. As she lets it fill her, she feels it, closes her eyes for a moment and truly  _ feels _ the weight of so much loss. With a long shaky breath drawn in from her nose, she opens her eyes again and looks over at him tenderly, “Well… that’s that, then.”  
  
“I know all of the names of my crew on that ship. Every last one,” he says. “I met their families at the memorial, after I was rescued from the Klingon ship. My choice is one that I’ll carry with me. That I’ll always remember.”  
  
He looks up, takes in her sweetness, the tenderness, and looks directly into her widely innocent, yet infinitely wise eyes.   
  
“I carry the pain of their deaths with me, every day. It’s branded on me, by this injury that I will never have fixed.” He lifts his hand, pointing to his eyes, now pitifully and painfully cursed.  
  
She is supposed to be learning about what it means to be a captain.  And ordinarily she would not press the issue, but... there is a question perhaps only he can answer.   
  
“How do you...I mean...” she coughs, trying to summon the courage to say the words. “How do you trust yourself after that? How do you trust that you can take care of another crew?”   
  
He leans in. “If you were faced with the choice of a merciful death, or degrading, humiliating trial of pain and torture where eventual death was the only certain outcome... what would  _ you _ want your Captain to do?”   
  
She locks eyes with him. Without even hesitating, and with no judgement in her reply, she says, “I’d want him to save me.”   
  
“Romantic notion, but there was no third option in that situation,” he says, standing. He needs another drink, badly, but he stops himself from going to the bottle in front of her.   
  
That can wait.   
  
Instead, Gabriel walks to the en suite and turns on the faucet, splashing ice cold water on his face. Speaking of it like this has almost made him nauseated, and though he’d had a lesson to teach her in doing so, she will never understand. Too much hope, idealism...    
  
_ Being a Captain would ruin her. _   
  
He looks at himself in the mirror, water dripping from his face and onto his pristine uniform, and sighs.   
  
She is simmering. Of course he doesn’t take her seriously. Why would he? Nobody else does. Incensed, and with nothing to lose, she locks her jaw, stays in her seat, and lifts her voice so that he can hear her from the other room.   
  
“I think you underestimate a person’s ability to endure things in order to stay alive.”   
  
He grinds his teeth and sets his jaw, trying not to lose his temper.   
  
“And apparently  _ you _ don’t understand exactly what Klingon torture entails.”

Sylvia’s anger is so hot it burns blue. She wants to wring his neck for thinking he alone is capable of enduring suffering, as if he’s paying some cosmic penance for his sins. If he truly made the right call, why all this self-flagellation? Why not get his eyes fixed, be stronger and better moving forward for his new crew?

But what is there to be gained from pointing out his hypocrisy? Nothing.

She centers herself, breathes deeply, closes her eyes and speaks softly, recounting a story she’s been told since she was a girl:

“Some of us were killed in the streets, before our families. Some of us were beaten alive, while our children watched. The survivors often called them the lucky ones.’

“When they brought us aboard the prison car, even the slightest facial expression or body language could merit a beating, so you learned to kill all emotion… not just cover it up, but let it die entirely.’

“We were stripped. Showered. Measured. Sorted. Treated like livestock. Some were put down for arbitrary reasons: teeth too white, nails painted pink. Sometimes they’d beat us. Sometimes the person next to you would just disappear, and you’d wonder if they took him to be disposed of in the incinerator.’

“There was never enough food.’

“Our clothes were replaced with threadbare rags.’

“We slept in the belly of a large building, four, sometimes six, souls to a hard wooden bunk, with one thin blanket to share amongst us. You didn’t save anything, didn’t own anything, for fear the others would shiv you in your sleep to lay claim to it.’

“We existed in a place between life and death, reduced to skin and bones, dehumanized, demoralized. We cowered in fear when our captors came, to drag us to rooms unknown. We longed for purpose, for sunlight, for a way to measure time, for sleep, for feeling...anything at all…’

“The human body was not meant to endure such conditions, and yet whenever one man fell sick, another survived. Strength did not help us then, for we were all weak. Neither did knowledge, for those who knew too much were often hindered by what their textbooks had taught about what was possible for the human body to endure. The ones who made it through did so simply on faith: in God, in each other, in something that existed on the outside.”

She pauses her narration, catches her breath for the first time since she started, and allows her chin to drop to her chest, overwhelmed with emotion.

Gabriel hears her, but she’s speaking too softly for him to clearly understand, and he has to step out of the comfort of the small room. It isn’t until he’s about halfway to her chair that he realizes just what she’s saying. Somehow, he makes it to her chair, gripping the back for support while she speaks. 

Her words send him back to that first Klingon ship, to the days and nights he spent in anguish. It had only been a week --

_ (only) _

\-- but it was long enough for him to want to die at every single moment. His hands go numb; he’s gripping the chair so hard that he barely feels his thumb nail splinter. 

The pain… he feels it again, as though he was still there. In his mind he  _ is _ there as though he never left, watching the Buran explode over and over again. Never at safe distance, for there wasn’t time to get that far. In comparison, what the Klingons did to him was inconsequential.  For all practical purposes, Gabriel Lorca died with his crew, even though he lived.

Time slips away from him now, and his eyes close to the world, immersing him in the past. He feels the brands on his back being placed for the first time.  It was a cruel joke to his captors, the two symbols that they felt marked him as a coward. Then, he had taken the abuse with silence, but now he can feel it, for some reason he… he… 

His body seizes with pain, and he cries out, howling like an animal.

“Captain!” Tilly bolts up, eyes wide.

He is locked inside himself. There’s glimmer of a word, of a scared voice, but it does not cause him to surface from this waking nightmare.

She’s seen fits like this before. She knows what she needs to do.  And she knows he will fight it. But she has to try.

“Gabriel. I’m going to put my arms around you. You need the pressure. It will help.”

Not wasting a moment on tentative touches, she buries him in a hug, lacing her fingers together behind his back and holding on for dear life.

He feels something on him, and he tries to fight it off. It’s one of them, and he can’t stand it again, not now. He pummels his fist against the attacker, hoping that they will just leave him alone this time, and let him mourn in peace.

“It’s ok, Gabriel. It’s ok. Let it out. It’s ok.” He struggles against her, but by sheer force of will and determination, she holds on, trying to hold him together with all her strength.”

They won’t leave him alone, and he continues to fight. He attempts to swing out, afraid there are more, and the motion throws him off balance. 

She tightens her grip, steadying him, holding him up, but the pressure alone isn’t enough. Maybe… just maybe this will ground him…

"I, Gabriel Lorca, having been appointed an officer in the United Federation of Planets, as indicated above in the grade of Captain, do solemnly swear …”

The voice, it’s louder now, and he remembers how much it means to him to hear it. He knows these words, too, remembers saying them when he became a Captain.

Slowly, a sense of time returns to him, and he’s aware of a body close to his. The soft scent of flowers fills his nose, and he opens his eyes.  All he can see is a mess of wild, bright hair in the low light. Though he is embarrassed, he needs the comfort she is giving him, and he stops fighting her. 

As he winds down, she doesn’t let up her grasp, but reels him in close for a full contact embrace, hands pressed firmly against his back, like she used to do so many times for her baby brother. And she continues the oath:

“...that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United Federation of Planets against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;...”

The hardest thing in the world for him is to let Sylvia hold him like this. Gabriel hates being touched, unless it’s his own idea, and only then in extremely specific circumstances. But her touch is familiar, as crazy as it seems, as though she’s been holding him for a lifetime. The words are calming and irritating at the same time; this is an instance where we wishes very much that he’d stayed on his father’s farm and never had the dream of flying. So he concentrates on her voice instead, and its soothing, calming presence.

“...that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter....”

He’s settling, and it’s good, it’s a good sign. But she knows better than to let go prematurely. He needs stability, security, predictability. And it doesn’t even occur to her that she is giving it to him… she just does.

He starts to speak with her, remembering a time when he words were so important; when he’d wanted to say them and wear the pin on his chest that he’d once been so proud of:

“I solemnly swear to uphold the regulations of United Federation Starfleet as well as the laws of the United Federation of Planets, to become an ambassador of peace and goodwill ...”

This is good. This is a foundation they can both lean on: the ideals of something greater than both of them. If she could be a conduit of faith for him, then... then... she doesn’t know what... but she knows this moment is not about her. It’s about something deeper.

As he says the words along with her, she loosens her grip and moves away from his body. She is still holding him, but only with her hands on his arms. She hopes it is enough for him to make the transition to finding his own center. And she keeps up the oath while examining his face for signs of relapse or recovery, all the while reciting:

“...to represent the highest ideals of peace and brotherhood, to protect and serve the Federation and its member worlds,...”

His throat aches, and his face is wet... better not to think about those things that are best left to dwell in the past. Better now to focus on something besides himself, something bigger than himself: the ideals, the brotherhood, the symbolism of the words. It was never about him, anyways. He gave all chance of having a normal life behind, when he became a Captain. Never a father, a husband... only a lover for a night, only stolen moments of a life he could have had. 

“ ... to serve always the interests of peace, to respect the Prime Directive, and to offer aid to any and all beings that request it.”

Her mouth curves into a faint smile. She returns her hands to her sides, standing at attention, and raises her chin a little. And... is that a glimmer of pride in her eyes?

Gabriel can’t look at her, not now. Sylvia has seen him at his most vulnerable, a side that he has been trying so hard to hide from everyone. Kat saw it, for a moment, when he begged for this ship. But not like this, not even when he had her in a choke hold, ready and programmed to kill her if she’d made the wrong sound. 

He turns away, all he can do to salvage what remains of his pride. It’s the only thing that’s kept him going, after all. The only thing that has made him moderately sane. And now even that is gone, with her.

Not for the first time, he wishes he’d died with his crew. It’s almost enough to set him back over the edge, and he shakes his head as he covers his mouth with his hand, hiding the grimace of pain.

He’s spiraling away, again, currents of shame pulling him down. 

_ Lies. All lies.  _

But lies strengthened by his belief in them.

She... she can’t believe he carries this burden inside of him. Constantly. The pride she feels in serving under him swells within her, but it is accompanied by something else, now. Is it compassion? Admiration? Devotion?

“Captain...”

She speaks to him simply to draw his attention, like casting a line out to a drowning man.

“I don’t want you to see me like this.” The words are muffled, and it’s all he can do not to bite the inside of his hand, just to help soften the sting of his mental turmoil. “I didn’t mean for you to have to see me like this. I’m sorry.” He still can’t look at her, and fights the urge to retreat somewhere far away from here.

She pauses. Considers.

“Do you want me to go, Sir?”

He hesitates, then nods. “I’m sorry.” The words sound dumb coming out of his mouth, and he winces slightly.

This entire visit has defied her expectations. She is supposed to be here to learn from him, to emulate him, to become a Captain someday.

Yes. It’s horrible. The way he is feeling is so horrible.

If she were simply his friend or if he were simply her commanding officer, she would go, walk out of the room, and give him the space he wants.

But that is not what Gabriel Lorca would do.

She reaches into her pocket, takes out a hair-tie and throws her locks into a quick bun at the back of her head. And then she takes a deep breath.

“You gave everything you had to Starfleet, and they failed you. They let you believe in no-win scenarios and hopeless causes. But the USS Buran is not the Kobiyashi Maru. Your ship was real, full of real people, and they were an irreplaceable loss.’

“Maybe… maybe it’s irrelevant whether you made the right choice or not because real life is not an exercise in a computer program that can be examined or explained. Sometimes... sometimes horrible things just... happen.’

“The Kobiyashi Maru has no survivors, but the USS Buran does. It has one. You. And your name is Gabriel Lorca. And you are still here to make a difference. And there’s something kind of beautiful about that.’

“I know you don’t want me here. And I know you don’t want to hear me say any of this, but-“

“But what, Sylvia?” He’s had his back to her for most of her speech, but when she says it ... that word --

_ (beautiful) _

\-- it triggers a memory. Maybe not a memory, per se, but he remembers the dream, and how much he wanted her to accept her beauty, and how she would have none of it.

Gabriel turns to her. Her face - her genuine, hapless, innocent face, so kind and concerned and full of the simple goodness and humanity that’s been missing from his life. 

He wants to know, now. Why she’s stayed, and not fetched Hugh or the CMO during his flashback.

“But what?” he asks, this time more gently. He lets his hands drop, lets down his defenses, just for a minute.

As he opens up to her, she feels something flowering inside her own chest. Her body reacts viscerally to his earnestness. Her senses are heightened. Her heart is racing. But she keeps her body in check. She is standing at attention, hands clasped behind her back.

_ There’s no going back, now. _

“Don’t you think the best way to honor your crew is not to simply win the war, but also to win your life back? To fight not just for everyone else, but also for yourself? To not allow what happened to destroy you?  I don’t know… maybe it’s too idealistic of me, but it seems like the best way to say “Fuck You!” to the Klingons is to find a way to be happy, no matter what they take from you.“

She’s right: it’s too idealistic.

But... in a way she’s right. In a sense, he hasn’t been fighting the Klingons, the physical ones out there. The ones who tortured him are dead after all, their ship long gone. 

But they’ve left ghosts. Not  _ real _ ones, of course. Such things defy the laws of physics. But there are manifestations of them, like ghosts, left in his mind. Them, the Buran -- it’s still real to him. And the memory saps every good thing in his life. 

“I may never be able to let them go.” It’s the truth, and the most honest thing he’s said in months.  “I have nothing, other than this,” he says, pointing to his badge. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”

Till now.

She gently laughs. Even though she tries not to, she can’t help it. “It’s your Stubby.”

“My what?”

Nervously, she raises her hand and wiggles her ring finger. “Stubby? My Grandpa Rick? He blew off his finger?”

He nods and sighs. “I suppose so.” Despite himself, he laughs too. Sylvia’s laughter is something to treasure, and as contagious as a yawn.

It seems they have reached resolution, and she recalls his desire to be alone. Honestly? She could use some time to process everything as well.

“Until next time, Captain?”

“Dismissed.”

He needs to be alone more than anything, even though there’s nothing he wants more than to keep her here.

A nod, a word to the computer, and she’s gone.


	4. Choose your pain

As soon as Tilly slips into the corridor outside Lorca’s room, she collapses against the wall, cradling her aching body. While she held Lorca through his episode, he’d pounded into her, repeatedly. She had been prepared for it. She knew how difficult it can be to help center someone lost in terror.

Growing up, things were never easy for her younger brother. Grandpa Rick always said he was special, their family’s gift -- an angel sent to teach them more about the mercies of God… but Mrs. Tilly said it plainly: he was autistic. He would get overstressed, or overwhelmed, and his entire body would shut down. He’d go to another place, a terrifying place. It was in those moments that he needed security, stability, comfort… and Sylvia learned how to hold onto him, giving him that anchor through her body and her words.

Even so, her brother never punched her like a soldier.

She winces, touching her sides. After a few deep breaths, she heads towards Sick Bay, but then she realizes: as soon as she is treated, they will ask her questions, then more questions. And Lorca has confided in her. This is the kind of information that might jeopardize his position as Captain, and she is not about to be the source of gossip or reprimand, on his account.

She’d dealt with the aftermath of a terror before. She can do it now.

So she goes to her room, strips off her uniform, and eyes her wounds in the mirror.

_ Yep. That’s gonna leave bruises. _

She can already see the skin coloring around her collarbone and ribs.

“Computer, maximum dose of ibuprophen?”

“Maximum dose is: 800 mg, to be taken with 8 ounces of water. This may be repeated up to three times daily, for a maximum dosage of 2400mg in a 24 hour period.”

Tilly downs the pill, then lays down, exhausted, and falls into a deep sleep.

The next morning, the bruising is undeniable, and it’s even worse the second day. Tilly powers through, favoring her side slightly, but manages… that is, at least, until Michael walks into their room while she is dressing.

Pale skin, covered with blotches of black, purple, and deep blue. It isn’t something Michael had expected to see when she glanced Tilly’s way. Neither are the soft moans that follow any movement.  Something has happened to her roommate, something terrible. Emotion isn’t something that she easily deals with, but seeing this causes her insides to boil. It takes all of her upbringing to temper it, control it,  _ compartmentalize it, _ before she speaks out loud. “There are bruises on your back, and you appear to be in pain. Have you been to Sick Bay for an evaluation?”

“Oh! I didn’t expect you!” Tilly scrambles to get her clothes back on.

“That much is obvious.” Michael removes her jacket and lays it on the bed. As much as she wants to give Tilly her own space and remain an objective observer, she does want to ensure that her roommate is well and in top form. “I can examine you myself, and see if any further follow up is needed. If you would like.”

“It’s not necessary.”

Tilly’s voice has none of her characteristic spunk from when she is anxious or making up for her perceived insufficiencies. No. Her tone and manner now is closer to her demeanor during missions than her composure during ship life. As she slips on her shirt and favors her bruises, she is calm. Level headed. Deliberately unashamed.

The look on Tilly’s face is so oddly proud, that Michael decides not to press the matter further. Whatever happened is her own business, after all. At least, that’s what her Vulcan self tries to calmly compute. But Michael is Amanda’s daughter too, and there’s a part of her that knows something is far more wrong than Tilly is letting on. She’s torn, but decides the logical outlook would be the most prudent. “You are in pain, and there is no reason to be when you can be healed of your injuries in minutes. The fact that you have not gone to the Sick Bay leads me to believe that you are mentally unwell. Therefore, as a Science Specialist I find it necessary to take you against your will, under Starfleet Mandate 11923-“

Tilly bursts out laughing.

“I don’t see the humor in this situation.” Michael is tempted to contact Dr. Culber directly, and leave it to him to enforce the mandate.

“Oh... _Oh_... You’re serious??” Tilly stifles her laughter.

“Of course I’m serious.” Michael raises an eyebrow. “In the time I’ve lived with you, have you ever known me not to be?”

“You have a point.” Tilly does not want to go to Sick Bay. She does not want to be barraged with questions she has no intention of answering. But she also doesn’t want to lie to her mentor, roommate, and friend.

“So you’ll go?”

Tilly sits on her bed, hands in her lap, eyes plaintive. “I don’t want to. And I know it doesn’t make logical sense, but sometimes things are just... illogical.”

“I don’t agree with that statement,” Michael says calmly. “But I will suggest a compromise, if you are agreeable.”

“What?” Tilly is guarded.

“I need to meet with Lt. Stamets regarding some modifications to the spore drive. I’d imagine Dr. Culber would enjoy being otherwise occupied, if you met him in their quarters.”

Tilly considers her roommate’s offer. She can tell Michael is handling her, but she’s doing it so masterfully that Tilly can’t help but respect her for it. Her offer is impossible to refuse.  “Just like that? If I see Dr. Culber, you’ll let it drop?”

Michael nods. “A medical examination is just that, regardless of the setting.”

Tilly eyes her suspiciously. “Okay. When is your meeting?”

“At 1800.” She checks her watch. “That gives you forty-five minutes to take care of your personal needs, before you report to him.”

Tilly nods, standing and walking to the door. “I’ll meet you back here.”   
  
She doesn’t actually have any personal needs to attend to, but she can’t imagine dealing with Michael staring at her for over half an hour, so she takes a leisurely stroll around the corridors.

Tilly makes it back to their room in time for them to walk over together. When they arrive, Lt. Stamets greets them, befuddled, but with a glimmer in his eye.   
  
“I knew I was getting Michael, but I didn’t expect you, Cadet! Is this a two-for-one special?”

“She’s come to visit Dr. Culber while you and I attend to the spore drive.” Michael tries to appear bored when she says the words, even though she is looking over the lieutenant’s shoulder as she speaks, searching the room for his partner.

A stupid grin is plastered over Stamet’s face, “Well isn’t that just… delightful! Come in! Come in!”

He ushers them in, and Tilly gets the feeling that this is more like visiting during cocktail hour than stopping in on business. Her boss’s new demeanor, thanks to his injection of Tardigrade DNA, is still something she is getting used to. She casts a glance at Michael and stifles a small laugh.

The room is larger than Michael and Tilly’s shared space, but there isn’t enough room for them to meet separately. At first, Michael almost refuses the offer, as she’d like to continue the task without the trivialities of small talk. However, she relents when Tilly grabs her hand and leads her inside.

“How are you two?” Hugh asks from across the room. He is seated at a small table, a chessboard in front of him.

_ How are they? _ Well… the truth is that Tilly doesn’t want to face the truth. Her body is bruised and sore. She’s caught in the middle of something she barely understands, and her mind has barely caught up with whatever reality she is facing. But she is not ready to talk about any of that, much less face her feelings about it. So she bites her lip and looks to Michael to answer the doctor’s question.

“Cadet Tilly is not feeling very well at the moment, and was wondering if you could perform a cursory exam in private, if you wouldn’t mind.” Michael looks at Stamets. “Would it be permissible to change the location of our meeting to the canteen?”

“Oh? I had no idea you were under the weather, Cadet.” Stamets places his hands on her arms reassuringly. “You take all the time you need. I need my team in top performance.”

Tilly stifles her surprise at his intimacy and stands there, in shock, as Stamets and Michael exit the room.

“He’s …” Hugh stands and smiles, almost apologetically. “I know you’ve seen the personality change, working with him as closely as you do.”

“It’s…” She laughs. “It sure takes some getting used to! I keep thinking that as soon as I get used to him like this, he’s going to switch back, and I’ll say something stupid at the wrong time and get into trouble. Not that he was… not nice before… I just mean…”

“I live with him, you don’t have to explain it to me.” He keeps his stance relaxed, not letting her know that he is already assessing her wellness. Already, he notes the stiff posture, a hitch in her breath when she breathes deeply, and a dark bruise that is just visible underneath her white shirt.

“That must be nice. Having someone. I mean… I have a roommate, but it’s just not the same.” She laughs, relaxing a little. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like to find someone, much less someone in Starfleet. I always assumed that relationships were something that you had to be okay with giving up. You know?”

“Paul and I are the exception, rather than the rule.” As he speaks he walks to a small cabinet and opens it, pulling out a tricorder. It would give him all the information he needed, even if it couldn’t provide the curative measures that the Sick Bay would.

“My mother was so disappointed when I joined Starfleet. Which isn’t saying much, really. There wasn’t much I did that didn’t disappoint her. However, she found it particularly egregious that my life plan did not include marrying a nice man and popping out a litter of grandchildren for her. Oh god! I can’t even imagine. I cannot see myself spending my entire life wiping snotty noses and cooking meals. I can’t even make toast without burning it. I would make a terrible wife.”

“I was lucky,” Hugh shrugs. “Well,  _ we _ were lucky. Can you take a deep breath? And then after that breathe normally.” He adjusts a few controls on the tricorder, then looks up expectantly.

She’s been prattling nervously, but now? Now it’s happening. He’s examining her. And she has to face whatever comes. A microexpression of worry flashes across her features before she hides again behind the mask of a smile. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, then follows his instructions, breathes deeply, her breath hitching slightly as her bruised ribs expand with her lungs, and then allows herself silence so that she can focus on regulating her breaths to a normal tempo.

It doesn’t take a tricorder to see that she has a bruised rib, but the result flashes across the screen just the same, as well as confirmation of the bruises that he noticed before. They span her back and arms, and look like …

“Have you been in a fight?”

His question is met with silence.

Hugh sighs and sets the tricorder down. “Training accident? I see these all the time. No one likes to admit it when they get their pride beaten down on the holodeck.”

That would have, of course, been a perfect lie. But Tilly wasn’t particularly adept at deception, so she hadn’t even thought of it. She nods, not meeting his gaze, “Yeah, sure.”

Hugh purses his lips, but keeps his back to her as he stows the equipment. She’s lying, badly, even if he offered her the perfect excuse for her injuries. “I can fix you up, but you will need to briefly come with me to Sick Bay. Just for me to get some equipment - you won’t even have to go inside. Would you be okay with that?”

She knows he knows. She’s not dumb. But she can’t talk about it. She just can’t. The idea of going there, or there being a record of her injuries, or being detained and forced to talk about them… all of that just makes her feel… trapped. Even being here feels like a trap. She hadn’t wanted to come. She would rather be back in her bed, trying to find a comfortable position where her bruises didn’t hurt. She looks at him, allows her defenses down and pleads with her eyes, begging him to let her trust him.

“I won’t put it on your record,” Hugh says gently. “But I do need to treat you, or you’ll have to deal with Paul when you can’t do your work up to standard. The spores have mellowed him out, but the old, cranky Lieutenant is still in there.”

She knows he’s pushing her, just like Michael did, and she hates it. But she doesn’t see that she has a choice. She nods. She’ll go with him.

Hugh opens the door and follows her out, watching her movements the entire time. He’s worried about the Cadet, but not enough to file a formal report at this point. Burnham would have done so, if there was a great cause for concern, and part of him still wonders if she didn’t get her ass kicked in training by an older, stronger crew member. It happens often enough, especially to the newest and freshest from the Academy. 

It’s not a far distance to travel, just a few decks up. Hugh leaves her out front, and walks inside to pick up the equipment he needs to heal her.

She doesn’t realize she’s been holding her breath until he’s inside, and she lets it out as she leans against the wall. 

_ What is she doing? Why is she keeping this secret?   _

Because… because…

She sees Lorca’s face, but it’s not his face, is it? It’s the face from her dream, the face of a man torn open in agony and bleeding his feelings out in a gush of rage and desperation. She feels the relief she felt in that moment when he cracked open and starlight poured out. It was… intoxicating… exhilarating…

_ Tillly! Get a grip!  _

She straightens her posture, straightens her suit, and stands at attention, waiting for Dr. Culber.

_ You are keeping Lorca’s confidence because it is the right thing to do. Nothing more. Nothing less. _

“Cadet Tilly.” 

Completely taken off her guard, she startles and snaps out of her internal debate to register that the very person she’s been fixating on is now standing right before her. “Oh! Captain Lorca! Sir!” She laughs, hand on her chest, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” She hasn’t seen him since that night. She had hoped she’d have more time to gather herself together before facing him again, but on any ship you were bound to cross paths with everyone at some point.

“I just came by for an appointment.” It was true, to some degree. Gabriel tensed, hoping that the girl would not see the guilt on his face. The CMO was waiting for him, ready to begin the long delayed therapeutic sessions he had been needing. “Are you unwell? You look pale.”

“Here, Tilly. I have everything I need to mend that broken -- good evening, Captain Lorca.” Hugh straightens slightly, half at attention even though his hands are laden with instruments.

Gabriel shifts his eyes to Sylvia, veiling his concerns with a veneer of aloof calm, even though his mind is racing. What has she broken?

Tilly looks from Lorca to Culber then bursts out laughing, uncontrollably. The laughing mortifies her. 

_ Oh my god, Tilly, this is just like Uncle Seamus’s funeral! Stop it! _

The laughing causes her to favor her side, which mortifies her, even more, and she holds her hand over her mouth, trying to get herself under control. Through involuntary chuckles she squeezes out apologies, “I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”

“Do you need any assistance with carrying your equipment, Dr. Culber?” Gabriel scans the items quickly, not seeing anything that would denote that the Cadet has a major injury.

“Thank you, Captain, that --”

Lorca’s offer sobers her immediately, and she interjects, “—that won’t be necessary.” She smiles at him, then at Culber, taking the top instrument out of his arms, then smiles back at Lorca again.

“I insist.” Gabriel takes it from her. “You shouldn’t be carrying anything if you’re in pain, and you obviously are.”

As he looks away, her smile disappears and she catches Culber’s attention, silently pleading with him with her eyes.

“Actually, one of my attendants is going to -- here he is,” Hugh hands a few items to a medical assistant, and motions for him to take the small machine from the Captain. “If you can just pass that to Jeff, and we’ll be on our way.”

“Of course.” Gabriel does so, not looking back at the trio when he says, “As you were.” He walks into the small hospital, and the doors slide shut behind him.

As soon as he disappears inside, Tilly’s shoulders sag as she sighs in relief.

Hugh has watched the interaction with interest, but doesn’t say anything just now. “Why don’t we head back?”

Tilly follows him back to his room, relaxes as he instructs her to sit on the bed while he lays out the equipment to treat her wounds. She wants this to be over and done with, but she feels much more at ease now than she did in his quarters before.

“Should I take off my jacket? Or… ?”

“Remove your jacket and shirt, but you can keep your undergarments on.”

She does as instructed. The jacket is easy; she unzips it and lays it by her side. But the shirt is trickier; it’s hard to lift her arms over her head. She doesn’t feel the need to mask her pain like before, so as she maneuvers the top, she allows herself a quick intake of air as she bends, favoring her side.

Once her skin is bare, the full extent of  her injury is unmistakable.

“Ouch,” Hugh says. “Who did you decide to take on in the Holodeck?”

She gives him a look. They both know this isn’t an injury from a training exercise.

“You could talk to me, you know. I have to file a report if you were hazed, or if this was a domestic dispute. Otherwise, consider this a confidence between friends.”

She sighs, sagging her shoulders. “It’s nothing like that.”

“That’s a huge relief. This will sting a little.” Hugh presses an air injector against her arm, administering a pain killer and a low dose of muscle relaxer. Just enough medication that setting the broken rib won’t cause too much pain.

The pain is acute, but bearable. She lets him work, considering telling him more, telling him everything -- well, almost everything. The relevant parts. Was it wiser to keep Lorca’s flashback a secret, or was she in over her head?

Hugh turns on the osteogenic stimulator, keeping his eyes on the monitor as he needlessly rotates the dials on the side. “The pattern of the bruises looks like fist marks, which indicates a domestic dispute. But, I happen to know from Paul that you aren’t dating anyone, unless you’re keeping it a secret.”

She laughs at him, “Oh, God, no. Not dating anyone. I --” she bites her lip. Why is it so impossible to explain, even to herself? She feels so defeated.

“Then a friend?”

Even now the idea of opening up to him terrifies her. Once she does, there is no going back, and she can’t anticipate how the truth will alter things moving forward.

_ What would Captain Lorca do?  _

He wouldn’t even find himself in this situation. He’d storm out of the room and suffer the wounds in solitude. And wasn't that the problem?

Summoning her courage, she gulps and looks into her hands, “It was an accident. He didn’t know what he was doing. It wasn’t malicious or on purpose.”

Hugh narrows his eyes as he places the stimulator over the site of the fracture. “Why didn’t he know what he was doing?”

“He was --” she shakes her head, trying to find the right words, “-- not really here, having a terror. I've seen it before; it’s like the mind is just… in another place.”

“If someone on board this ship is even remotely dangerous, it needs to be reported.” Hugh continues to work as he speaks, pressing the buttons that will begin the healing process. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, speaking more out of the desire to see her response to his words. “I don’t think Captain Lorca would approve of his crew being attacked.”

“I am not filing a report.” She is resolute.

“Then I need more information. Take a deep breath -- this is going to hurt, even with the medications I gave you.”

She submits herself to his care. Sure, it hurts. But she’s tough. And she’s suffered through worse. At least this time it hurts because it’s healing.

He presses the stimulator into her chest wall, directly over the broken rib. The machine emits a bright, focused charge of light, making her entire chest glow momentarily. Tilly winces at the first, then relaxes as the light begins to slowly fade, indicating that her injury has been healed.

“Now, for the bruises,” Hugh murmurs. He takes a second machine from the small table and glides it over her sides. “I’m sorry if this tickles; it’s a known side effect of the ionization beam.”

It does tickle. Tilly snorts.

“Roll over on your stomach, and I’ll take care of the ones on your back.”

She does as instructed, resting her face on her crossed arms, turned away from him. It’s easier this way -- easier to face the reality of her predicament when she doesn’t have to look at him. She relaxes, allows him to mend her wounds. “Thank you. For for doing this. I really don’t want to talk about it. I know you want something from me. And there’s no reassurance I can give you that won't sound like I’m not being abused when my body looks like this. I get it.  I know how these patterns work.”

“Fair enough.” Hugh sits next to her on the bed, watching the bruises fade. He puts the small machine on the bedside table. “But I do need to know one thing, Tilly: Is this person dangerous? I understand that… well, we’re at War. It does damaging things to people, and sometimes there are aftereffects that last for years. But we don’t need someone on this ship who is going to lash out or physically harm another crew member at a moment’s notice, with no provocation.”

She sits up and turns to face him so that she can look in his eyes while she speaks. “He didn’t assault me. He was…” She bites her lip, and her eyes wander again while she searches for the right word. “He was… freaking out. I had said something, triggered a memory, a bad memory, and he just,” she looks back in his eyes, earnestly, “he lost himself. But he didn’t assault me. He was not a danger to me. He wouldn’t have been a danger to anyone. It was me. I’m the reason he broke down. So I held him, tried to get him to come back.” She doesn’t realize she believes her words until she says them, and the guilt that permeates them  makes her feel… terrible. It was her. She was the problem. If she hasn’t pushed him, he would have been fine. He needs to be fine. The crew needs him to be fine. The federation, the war effort, so many people are relying on him, on this one ship. What right did she have to undermine him? And for what? Because of a momentary flash of anger, desperate to prove she was more than just a silly Cadet?

“Okay,” Hugh says. He keeps his voice calm and measured as he continues to speak. “That’s exactly what I needed to know, and I appreciate you sharing with me. I’ll ask you one more question, and then I’ll let the matter drop -- unless this happens again. Are  _ you _ okay?”

No. She’s not ok. But she doesn’t know how to talk about it. She knows how to talk about everything...but this?...it evades her. “I’ll be fine,” she gives him a shrug and a half-smile.

“Will you promise me something?”

She gives him a look. “What?”

“When you’re ready to talk about it, will you come find me?” Hugh passes her her jacket and shirt. “I can’t imagine Michael being the most sympathetic listener, even though she seems to be your closest friend here. But you can talk to me. Professionally, or not.” He stands when he is done speaking, and turns, offering her a little privacy.

She pauses before slipping her clothes back on so that she can just…  _ feel _ … the moment. She’s not used to this, to people caring about her. Once she’s dressed, she stands and approaches him. “Hugh?”

He turns. “All dressed?”

She buries him in a hug.

Hugh laugh and puts his arms around her, no longer needing to worry about her injuries. It’s what he’s wanted to do since the moment she walked through the door, after all. “You’re going to be fine.”

She squeezes him tighter. “Thank you.”

* * *

As Chief Medical Officer, Elias Kindred keeps himself busy with his work, and his tidy office is a testament to that end. There isn’t much room for superfluous items aboard a starfleet vessel; however, this space is particularly spartan, with nary a personal item in sight, save for a small clock that is not Starfleet issue.

“Thank you for meeting with me today, Dr. Kindred.” Gabriel sits in the chair across from him, coolly crossing his legs and affecting his regular bravado.

The doctor is unphased by his captain’s demeanor. He knows him too well to fall for the charms that work on so many others. Before standing, he removes his spectacles, wiping them with a handkerchief, “It's been awhile, Gabriel. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I missed my last medical exam. Figured it was time to remedy that.”

“Right.” Dr. Kindred puts on his glasses then raises his brow as he looks at his PADD to recite the information he already knows by heart. His voice is soft and measured, and that steady cadence helps him come across as assertive, instead of toeing the line into aggressive. “In fact, you’ve missed your past two physicals and dodged my messages asking you to reschedule. That is until two days ago at 2145 hours, when you had the computer fill you in for my next available appointment.” He sets down the device, walks around the desk and leans against it, facing his captain. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here, Gabriel?”

“I, uh --” Gabriel’s lip twitches, and he coughs nervously. “I had an episode. It was worrisome, and I thought it was time to make some changes.”

Dr. Kindred places his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “It’s good that you came in.” Then he nods and takes the seat next to him, leaning back with a relaxed posture. “Now why don’t you tell me what happened.”

“It’s happened more than once now. My mind… I’m on edge, you know? Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the past and the present.” He doesn’t look at his friend when he speaks, instead keeping his eyes focused on his hands.

“When this happens, how would you describe your emotional state? You say you’re on edge… ?”

“I’m probably always on edge.” Gabriel continues to fidget, and looks anywhere but at Dr. Kindred’s calm face. “It catches me unaware. A touch, a smell, a thought… it brings it all back. All the -- all the madness of what I’ve seen. And I’m right back in the past, reliving the past. Unable to stop it.”

“I see.” Dr. Kindred pauses to think, but also to give Gabriel a chance to go on, of his own volition. He’s not surprised at his Captain’s confession, but he can’t help wondering what has pushed him over the edge this time. He’s wanted to have this conversation with him for months. Why is Gabriel opening up now?

“A few days ago, I… It happened during a mentoring session with a Cadet. I saw her today, and I think I may have injured her, in some way.” His hands are shaking now, and he clasps them together to hide it.

Dr. Kindred leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I’m here to help.”

Gabriel finally looks at his old friend and nods. “Thank you.”


	5. They'll never think it’s real

“Why are we here, Tilly?”

Not only is Michael Burnham wearing a ridiculously impractical blouse, she is sitting across from her roommate in the USS Discovery’s sole bar, a tray of shot glasses between them filled with various alcoholic concoctions. Sylvia is similarly dressed, but she seems as at home with her hair down and her low neckline as she does with the two dozen mini beverages she has begged the bartender to prepare just for them.

“We are here so that you can figure out what your drink is!” she grins, full of good cheer. “You don’t want to have to experiment at a party, and God forbid you leave it up to fate, or order something you don’t like and just get stuck holding a buttery nipple you don’t want.”

“A buttery what?”

“Here,” Tilly pushes one of the shot glasses forward. “One of these. Take a sip! Who knows, you might like it!”

Michael gives the tiny glass a dubious look and takes the tiniest sip. A very sharp, very sweet flavour hits her lips and tongue, and she almost gags as she puts the glass down and shakes her head.

“Now aren’t you glad you didn’t have to experience that in front of someone you were trying to impress?” Tilly waggles her eyebrows. Not waiting for a reply, she pushes another shot glass her way. “Try this. It’s a long island iced tea. And no, before you ask, there is no tea in it.”

Michael shakes her head. “No. Alcohol impedes judgement and lowers inhibitions, and I do not want to make myself susceptible to either of those situations.”

“Ignorance and lack of experience do more harm than good. Trying new things in a safe environment, with someone you trust, is both wise and prudent.”

“That line sounds like you spent an hour repeating it in front of the mirror.”

“Yes...but is it logical?” Tilly raises her eyebrow.

“Perhaps.” Michael nudges the shotglass with her finger, then takes it in hand and downs it in one gulp.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Tilly picks up the rejected buttery nipple and downs it, laughing. “God! I hate those, too!”

“My face feels… oddly warm,” Michael says, scanning the room. She stops when she sees two men who aren’t normally here, and one that makes her face warm, even without the added benefit of alcohol.

“Ok...next you should either try a midori sour, or a vodka tonic. I feel like the vodka tonic is almost cheating, because the tonic water cuts into the alcohol content, but it may end up being one of your favorites. Either that, or gin and… _Oh_!” Tilly turns to see what caught her roommate's eye, and instantly loses her train of thought.

Michael takes the stronger drink and, logical or not, drinks it entirely as Lieutenant Ash and Captain Lorca walk up to their table.

“Hello Tilly… Burnham...” Ash smiles at the two girls, then raises his eyebrows at the spread between them. He can’t believe his luck. He wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for the world. Turning to Michael, he stifles a laugh. “I didn’t think you drank.”

“I don’t,” Michael says, picking up a shot of something red and white. “Tilly is introducing me to the logical art of drinking.”

“Is she?” Gabriel looks at his science officer and the Cadet, perhaps studying the latter a bit more closely. She’s flushed, with more than just alcohol, and it appears that she is no longer in pain. “What else has Cadet Tilly been teaching you?”

Ash wastes no time. Turning a seat around backwards, he sits down between the two girls and eyes the spread, “Oh...you should try this one next. It’s-” he takes a small sip of blue alcohol from the shot glass before handing it to Michael, “-yep! It’s horrible!”

“I just thought it would be a good idea… you know… to broaden her horizons…” Tilly is blushing apologetically, so nervous to be speaking to Lorca in a public setting.

“And getting her drunk is the best way to do that?” Gabriel laughs. “Have you ever drunk alcohol, before tonight?”

“No, sir,” Michael says. “My cheeks feel flushed. Is this a normal reaction?”

“This is why we asked for tiny glasses,” Tilly reminds her roommate, pinching her fingers together as she reiterates. “Tiny sips from tiny glasses.”

“Is there any way to get rid of the effect?”

“I’ll get you some water. That will help.” Tilly gets up, pauses before heading to the bar, and gives Ash a look, “No more drinks while I’m gone. Got it?”

He stifles his amusement at her moxy and nods. Tilly glances at the three of them, and, satisfied, she continues on with her task.

“I’ll join you,” Gabriel says. He gently takes her arm, deliberately slowing his steps in an attempt to steady her rapid pace and guides her through the crowd. Leaning down, he whispers in her ear, “Let’s let Ash make his move, shall we?”

His low voice in her ear and his hot breath against her skin send goosebumps shivering up her neck. But she has more important things on her mind: her duty to her friend who has entrusted herself to her care. She looks over her shoulder nervously at the couple, but slows her gait to match Gabriel’s own. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. They should have a chance to figure out how they feel about each other while they’re sober, otherwise Michael will never think it’s real.”

She turns back to face her captain, to read from his expression if he agrees with her protective instincts, but she gets lost for a moment in his blue eyes. She’s never been this close to him before. Well, except for when he was having a flashback to when he was tortured by the Klingons and she held him in a bearhug to try and pull him out of it. Or when she was dreaming and they… well… making love in a sex dream is hardly the same thing as walking arm in arm across a crowded room.

But, then, why do his eyes look the same?

She tries to hide her blush with a quick shake of the head. “What Michael needs is to slow down, drink lots of water, and have a positive experience so that she’s not scared to come out drinking again.”

“You need to stop being her den mother, and just let her be a normal woman.” Gabriel doesn’t say it cruelly, even though he knows the words have a bite. Burnham is one of his crew who most needs to learn how to relax and have a fun night out. Why is her roommate suddenly wanting to put her back in her shell?

As he says the words, he looks into Sylvia’s eyes. The lights in the bar are making soft green flecks pop out, and the effect is dazzling. He has to stop himself from staring, and suddenly busies himself with ordering him and Ash a drink.

Tilly interrupts him in the middle of his order, with a dazzling smile, to ask the barkeep for a water, then turns to Lorca, eyes narrowed, reproachful, “She is not normal. She is completely inexperienced at what it means to feel things like a human. In addition to that, she has never had alcohol before. Ever. Do you know how vulnerable that makes someone, especially as a woman?” Then she realizes. No. Of course he doesn’t. She shakes her head at him. A lot has changed to advance opportunities and status for women, but some things are always the same. And one of those is a man’s inability to resist taking advantage of a woman when her guard is down. The barkeep is back with the water and she takes it, leaving a tip, and heads back towards Ash and Michael without waiting for her escort.

“Cadet!” Gabriel follows after her, not even waiting for the beer. The room is crowded, almost to the point of claustrophobia, and he has to pass through the throngs of people before he reaches her. “Sylvia, must you always take everything I say the wrong way?”

She spins around, simmering. So it’s her fault, again, is it? It’s always her fault with him. “Why don't you clarify, Captain?”

“You push her into drinking, you push her into wearing those ridiculous clothes - now you want her to sober up and go home? It’s a little confusing, isn’t it?”

“First off, I happen to think she looks amazing. Second, I didn’t push her into drinking. She agreed to try something that scares her because I helped her feel safe enough to attempt it. Third I am not trying to sober her up and take her home. I’m trying to help her go slow so that she can stay as long as she wants and look back on this evening without regrets, and without a hangover.” With that, she continues her course back to her roommate who is now flush with intoxication.

Gabriel touches her shoulder, only for her to shake his hand off, and he follows her to the table.

“So this will work?” Michael asks as she looks at the large glass of iced water. “I don’t like this feeling, and I’d prefer never to feel this way again.”

“Just drink it and give yourself some time,” Tilly smiles, sits by her side and surveys the table. Noting that one more shot glass is empty, she looks accusingly to Lieutenant Ash.

“Oh! That was me. All me. I felt it was only fair to even the playing field.”

“He’s been a perfect gentleman the entire time you were gone, according to his own assessment,” Michael says, hiding a shy smile.

“Has he now?” Gabriel shakes his head, and takes the forgotten drinks that the attendant brings him, passing one to Ash. “Cheers.”

“At least someone has,” Tilly mutters under her breath.

“What did you say, Tilly? You were talking at too low a decibel level for most of us to hear.” Michael raises her own voice, even though she doesn’t need to, and wonders if it could be an effect of the drinks.

“Yes, _Sylvia_. What were you muttering?” Gabriel all but purrs. He heard it, but wants her to say it again, so that he can watch her squirm.

“Oh shut up,” she says to him, abruptly turning her attention to Michael. “Make sure you drink all of that. There’s a straw. Use it. It’ll go down faster that way.”

Michael does as she’s told, though she raises an eyebrow in Tilly’s direction. This whole exchange is highly unusual, even for an interaction that involves her highly irregular roommate.

“I think Cadet Tilly needs to burn off some energy. If you’ll excuse us.” Gabriel takes her by the arm and leads her into the crowd to the side, where the crew is dancing, and puts his hands on her hips. “Dance?”

“Wait! What?! What are you doing?” Awkwardly, she allows him to guide her, protesting the entire time. Her cheeks are flush as she pouts.

He leans forward and whispers in her ear again, saying, “I’m dancing with you, Cadet. Now, shut up and make sure you listen to the beat.”

No way in hell is she in the mood to be told what to do. There is fire burning inside of her, all the rage and frustration and pent up things she refuses to say, and she lets it burn into a hot tongue as she takes his lead.

He wants a dance, does he? She’ll give him a dance.

The song is energetic and sensual. With his grip still on her hips, she shimmies and twists while resting her hands momentarily on his chest and then his shoulders. She easily jives with the rhythm of the music, her loose curls bouncing with each shake of her head. Her fire burns hot with each movement as she gives him as good as she gets, and then some.

“Cadet?” He leans down, whispering in her ear. “Calm down. I brought you out here to talk, away from your friends, not to make a scene in front of my crew.”

She’s in no mood for his bullshit.

“Don’t play with fire,” she says, allowing her hips to dip and sway, “if you don’t want to get burned.”

He gives in for a moment, enjoying the heat of her body and the motion of their hips as they move together. It makes him remember the best dream he ever had, makes him remember…

Remember…

“I need a drink,” he says, walking away from her.

Whatever. _Asshole_. It’s not the first time someone has left her on the dancefloor, but this time hits her self esteem worse, for some reason. Without missing a beat, she keeps dancing, arms in the air, hair everywhere. The music feels good, and if she ever needed an outlet for her feelings, it is now.

Gabriel goes back to the bar and orders something stronger than the beer that’s probably grown warm by now.

“Scotch, neat.”

The drink is in his hands almost as soon as he says the words, and he drinks it quickly, letting it burn his throat and tongue. This is the burn he needs; the fire Tilly was offering is too dangerous. As kind as she’s been to him, even after he… after he hurt her… she’s been drinking as much as Michael, if not more, and her concern for her friend is nothing more than a mere projection of her concerns for her wellbeing.

_Right?_

He nods to himself, convinced of his theory. Elias would agree - it sounds like something that would come straight from the CMO’s mouth. Finishing the drink, he sets it on the counter and turns, scanning the room for Ash, and sees Tilly again. But this time, she’s not with her friends. Nor is she alone.

Not only has Lieutenant Rhys taken the Captain’s place on the dancefloor, he is kicking it up a notch as he pulls Sylvia closer against his body than Gabriel had dared. His hands are on her hips. For the moment. But his eyes are wandering down the curve of her neck and he licks his lips, wondering how much she might be willing to let him explore.

For Sylvia’s part, she is lost in the rhythm and emotion of the music. But while her eyes are on Rhys, her thoughts are elsewhere. _Drag me out here on the dancefloor? So that you can laugh at me? And then leave me in the middle of a song? You don’t know what you’re missin, buddy._

“It’s not your fight,” Gabriel tells himself. It was just a dream, she’s young, he’s her Captain. Too many reasons why it was never a good idea, why he should just stop the ‘mentoring’ sessions now, altogether. But he can think about that later, when there isn’t horrible music buzzing in his ears and his mind isn’t slightly fuzzed with alcohol. He walks away from the bar and towards the doors, ready to escape into his own world of perfect, silent darkness.

The song ends and Rhys tries to pull Sylvia closer as the tempo shifts into a slower song, but she smiles politely and shakes her head. _No_. She’s been away from Michael long enough and should really check on her--

Sylvia’s heart starts pounding immediately when she sees the empty table, littered with shot glasses, a few more empty ones than before. She glances quickly around the room. _Where did Michael and Ash go?_

First she heads to the bar, “Have you seen Burnham?”

“No.”

Then she bites her lip, looking around, “What about Lieutenant Tyler.”

The barkeep shakes his head. No. “Sorry.”

 _There’s no reason to panic, Tilly._ She pops into the bathroom, fruitlessly, then she scans the dance floor, more carefully this time. When she spots Detmer and Owosekun at a table at the front of the bar, she walks up to them as nonchalantly as possible and leans over, smiling, “You guys wouldn’t have happened to see Michael, at all, would you?”

Owosekun laughs, “Was she with Tyler?”

Tilly nods.

“Yeah...they left about...oh...five...maybe ten minutes ago?” She adds, raising her eyebrows, “And they looked _friendly_.”

Shit.

“How friendly?”

Detmer leans in, a devilish glint in her eyes, “Very.” And the two girls laugh.

Tilly’s face falls immediately. She doesn’t even try to hide her panic now. Michael and Ash… are somewhere… inebriated… and… probably... having… sex...

_shit shit shit shit SHIT!!!_

She doesn’t really know what to do, but she has to do something. And that’s when she sees him, walking towards the door. Sprinting through the crowd, she calls out, “Hey...hey Captain… please… you gotta help me.”

Gabriel freezes when she speaks, but just briefly, and for a moment he pretends like a hasn’t heard her. He’s almost at the door dammit, almost free from this place. Free from her.

Having finally caught up with him, she grabs his shoulder and spins him around. “Please! Sir! I need your help! Michael and Ash are gone!”

“And?”

“Please, will you help me find them?” she pleads, her face distraught.

He frowns, really not understanding Tilly’s distress. “They are two adults, Cadet. Their whereabouts don’t concern either of us.”

She pulls him into the corridor where she can talk more easily, without the loud music drowning out her voice. “I went back to the table, and they were gone, and several more drinks were empty. When I couldn’t find them, I asked around, and,” she bites her lip, “They left here very... _friendly_...please, Captain, I know this might not seem like a big deal to you, but Michael was in my care and I promised her I’d look out for her while we were drinking. I fucked up. I should have never left her alone. _Please help me find her_.”

Tears are starting to spill from the girl’s eyes, and the sight makes Gabriel cave. It’s not the information, even though that would have swayed him. “Shhhh. Take a deep breath, Sylvia. I’ll help you.”

She grasps his arm, “Thank you.”

The spot where she touches him tingles, and briefly he considers just standing there with her, letting that feeling wash over his body in a rush. “Let’s start down this corridor,” he says, shaking off her hand.

“I think Ash’s room is close, but I’m not sure which door is his. But they could be anywhere, really. Can you, like, have the ship scan for them, or something? If they’re not there, we could try the lab. My room is furthest away, but we can check there, too…”

“I’m the only person required to wear a comm at all times -- my Number One, as well. So there’s no way to scan unless we break a few privacy rights.”

“Is there any way to... I don’t know… casually ask the security detail to keep an eye out for them? Or is that overkill?”

“Ask Security to keep an eye out for their chief, because he and his date have had too much to drink?” Gabriel gives her a look.

“Yeah. Overkill.” She blushes, rounding the corner with him. “I want them to get together, you know. But not like this. They deserve better. She deserves better.”

“Maybe it’s overkill for me to state this,” Gabriel says, turning to look at her while he speaks. “They’re allowed to make their own decisions, you know. Without having a big sister looking out for them.”

“Ordinarily, I would agree with you. But this is different. Michael entrusted herself to my care. She got drunk because of me. Any regrets she has about this evening will be on me. I can’t let her down.” She’s the only friend I’ve got. “I just can’t let her down.”

They turn a corner, and he takes her arm, pulling her into a quiet alcove. “Why do you take so much responsibility onto yourself?”

“I take exactly the right amount of responsibility for the people who trust themselves with me.” She is baffled by his question. What else would she do? Betray Michael’s trust? Betray his?

“But it’s more than that with you. Other people, they would… other people are different.” The breath he takes hurts, probably like the ones she took after he hurt her. The hair in her face looks so much like… like that night that never happened, and he fights the urge to push the stray curls away. “You look really beautiful tonight, Sylvia.” He immediately regrets the words, for he knows how she will react… doesn’t he?

Her jaw drops slightly. That was the last thing she expected him to say. _What the fuck...is he really that drunk that he’ll hit on just anybody?_ The thought of that stings, especially since the words he spoke threaten to uncork a bottle of mixed emotions that have been shaking up inside of her for God-only-knows how long. _You look really beautiful tonight, Sylvia..._ just drunken meaningless ramblings to him, but words that hit too close to home for her. Before she even realizes she’s doing it, she slaps him across the face, the fire burning hot in her eyes as she chastises him, “Focus. This is not about me. This is about Michael. Help. Me. Find. Her.”

His face hurts. To be as small as she is, she packs a mean punch. Gabriel touches his cheek and looks around the corridor, making sure that no one witnessed her fit of anger. What he said was wrong, and even though he doesn’t regret it he wishes he could take the words back, perhaps to say again at another time. With a nod, he walks away, not waiting for her to follow.

Of course. He’s leaving. Of course he would leave.

Her chest hurts. She feels like...like he just ripped something out of her and threw it away. She hasn’t felt this way in years… hasn't allowed herself to feel this way in years. Sylvia falls back against the wall and slides down to sit on the floor, defeated. Too frustrated and overwhelmed to know what to do next, she just cries, and as soon as she starts crying, she can’t stop.

Gabriel doesn’t notice that she’s not with him, not until he’s rounded a corner.

“Sylvia?” He looks around, confused, then afraid. “Cadet Tilly, where are you?”

She doesn’t hear him.

She’s curled up, back against the wall, face in her arms, sobbing.

He retraces his steps, finding her in the same alcove where he left her. Wordlessly, he takes her hand and helps her stand. With a quick look down the hall to make sure no one is coming, and that no one will see her so upset, he guides her to the elevator.

“I thought you left,” she’s wiping her cheeks, looking at him warily.

“I thought you were behind me.” He tries to say the words gently, but they come out gruff, and he flinches slightly.

The hum and movement of the elevator soothes her. She leans back against the wall, eyes flitting back and forth across the floor as she thinks. “I don’t know what to do.” Everything is a mess.

“We’ll find her,” he says. Gabriel’s still has her hand in his, and he squeezes it before he realizes what he’s done. Startled, he drops it and turns from her slightly, pressing any button — something to take them away from here.

She feels it: his reassurance. She feels it in his words, in his touch, in his acts of service. His back turned to her, she looks at him… really looks at him: his broad shoulders, the silhouette of his head against the lights of the console, his adorable ears… and her heart swells within her.

He doesn’t have to be here for her, but he is.

She starts to replay the evening and how unprofessionally she has behaved, with no good excuse. Even with her insults and insubordination, he is still here.

She reaches out, touches his shoulder, “Captain…?”

“I _hurt_ you.” It’s the words he hasn’t wanted to say, think, or truly let himself feel. His shoulders slump, and in that moment he is what Katrina accused him of being: a broken man.

“What?”

“Outside of Sick Bay… All the equipment Hugh was carrying — that was for you. I did that to you, didn’t I?” His head drops; he’s exhausted from keeping up the act of sanity. “Please don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

She wasn’t trying to be evasive; she’s just surprised he is bringing it up. Her hand is still on his shoulder, and she grasps onto him as she steps around to face him, bending at the knees and looking up into his downcast face, trying to get him to look at her. “Hey… hey… that was my choice… I knew what I was doing when I chose to engage.”

“Don’t touch me,” he says, shaking her off. He moves away until his back hits the cool metal of the far side of the elevator. “I hurt you.”

Her eyes water as she watches him. He is in wild agony and she can’t help wanting to tame his fears. She approaches calmly, reaches out to hold his upper arms, “Yeah, you hurt me.”

“Don’t.” It’s a plea, but an empty one. His sessions with Elias have left him adrift, unsure of himself for the first time in his life.

The elevator doors open, and he walks out, away, replacing his mask just as quickly as it had dropped.

She follows him into the corridor, but stops short, “Please… Captain… _I’m sorry_ …”

“Drop it,” he says, briskly walking towards Stamets’s lab.

She follows, the matter of finding Michael more pressing than whatever...weirdness...was going on with him. But it doesn't keep it from hurting, his constant turning away from her, even if they keep walking in the same direction.

The lab is almost empty. There’s a lone Cadet in the corner, busily hovering over a monitor, perfectly oblivious to anything else in existence.

Of course they wouldn’t have come here. Gabriel frowns, thinking they should just go back to the start. Or better yet, that he should let Rhys help her with this task. Tilly seemed far happier dancing with him than she does now, with her face blotchy from tears. He sighs and closes his eyes, pinching his nose with his thumb and forefinger. His eyes are starting to throb, and he’s left his Optho-pens in his office.

Tilly goes over to talk to the Cadet, and returns a moment later, shaking her head. No sign of them. “Scuttlebut is you’ve taken Ash under your wing. You probably know him better than anyone else on this ship. Where does he like to go? What makes him feel...safe?...at home?”

He keeps his eyes closed while he speaks. “I wouldn’t know. He grew up outside of Seattle, he mentioned that once.” Cocking his head to the side, Gabriel lets out a snort. “What do you think a Seattle native would do to sober up a first time drinker?”

Tilly thinks for a minute, then, with a glimmer in her eye, she says, “Coffee.”

“Why don’t we check the canteen?”

They walk in silence to the elevator, and stand in silence as they travel six decks up. Gabriel keeps wincing and pinching his eyes, and Tilly can’t help but wonder how much of the affected behavior is a shield he’s put up to keep from facing her. But why? Why is he acting so hot and then cold again? Why is he helping her, then pushing her away? Why… _why did he call her beautiful?_

A thought occurs to her. As the elevator comes to a halt and they step out, she laughs as nonchalantly as possible, “How much have you had to drink tonight, anyways?”

“Just a scotch,” he says. “What about you? You and Michael seemed to be in the cups when Ash and I came upon you.”

 _You look really beautiful tonight, Sylvia_...he said that sober.

Her mind processes the new information as they walk, and her mouth responds of it's own accord, “Just a shot...and not even a full one. It takes way more than one shot to get me tipsy, let me tell you. One night, at the Academy, we had this huge party and everyone was invited, so even I was there, and let’s just say...I was the last woman standing.”

“That’s surprising, actually. I’d take you for a lightweight.”

She laughs, “No one is a lightweight in the Tilly household. Grandpa Rick used to say we had alcohol in our blood...something about our Scottish heritage.” She pauses, then adds, “But you? I’d never mistake you for a lightweight.” She says it deadpan, but at the end her mouth breaks into a slight grin.

He snorts and blushes, surprising himself. “I do have a reputation for holding my liquor, even at the Academy. Chris Pike, Kat and I…” He loses himself in memory, thinking of all the late nights spent with his old friends. All the parties, all the ‘study sessions’... It makes him suddenly sad, missing those days. But not only that -- missing the life that could have been, especially with Katrina.

They arrive at the canteen. It’s mostly vacant, a few stragglers eating late night snacks or talking over beverages. And sure enough, Ash and Michael are sitting at a table, two mugs between them, their backs to the door, looking out at the stars.

“We did it,” Tilly releases the words with a sigh and stops in her tracks, smiling contentedly as she watches the not-so-wayward couple.

“I don’t know how much ‘we’ had to do with it.” He feels awkward and out of place, but at least the light is dimmer here, and his eyes ache much less.

She shrugs, “I guess I would have thought to come here, eventually, after a lot more running around, but I honestly…” she just looks at him, looks at his sad face, loses her words for a moment, then shakes her head as if trying to summon her ability to think, to speak. “Thank you.”

“The heads of two Captains work better than one.”

“As long as we can stop butting them together long enough to cooperate,” she laughs at her joke, at his flattery, at their success. Turning to look at her friends, she sighs, “They look happy, don't they?”

Gabriel nods. “I hope…” he looks at her, studying her face. “Ambition is a wonderful thing. But opportunities like what they have, to possibly have a future of some kind, with someone else… it’s worth just as much as having your own ship.”

She’s glad she isn’t looking at him when he says it, because it frees her to feel the way his words wash over her, like a warm wave, to feel the way his words wash through her, like a warm tide.

She reaches down and squeezes his wrist. “Thank you,” and before he can protest, she tightens her grip, gives him the softest smile and adds, “Our next session is three days away? 2100 hours? I won’t be late this time.”

He nods and pulls away, slightly embarrassed. “Good night, Cadet.” Then he turns and leaves the canteen.

She watches him go, but, oddly, she doesn’t feel like she is alone this time. As he lets the elevator doors slide shut silently behind him, she feels… connected… somehow… she feels… _what does she feel…_?

Coming down off her adrenaline rush, she feels a little tired. That much is certain.

She snaps out of her thoughts, sets her gaze back on Michael and Ash. The night isn’t over, yet; so she gets a coffee of her own then joins them, laughing easily, and the three of them stay out as late as they want, with no regrets.


	6. Ice Cream

The corridor curves to the left, and Gabriel follows it, not sure where he’s going. The jeans he’s wearing are old, faded; the chambray shirt is rolled up at the elbows,  exposing his tanned arms. They’re clothes he’d never wear on the ship, but somehow they feel right, even down to the cowboy boots on his feet that clang with each step he takes.  


He’s finally tended to his eyes, and his spare Optho-pen is in his pocket, in case they start bothering him again tonight. He really should get them fixed; it really is getting ridiculous, but…

Would she look the same, with another man’s eyes? Would her hair be the same shade of red, or would it look brown?

He’s not certain, and no one can tell him the answers. So he choses his pain, daily, and choses to use the pen when the pain becomes unbearable.

_ Where is he going again? _

The door to the left looks familiar, and there is a scent in the air that he knows -- that’s as much a part of him as his five o’clock shadow.

_ Orange blossoms. _

He knows where he is, and his body fills with peace.

It’s Tilly’s room, but it’s not her room. The windows are not the same thin slits that exist in her waking life. Instead, the entire wall is gone and she’s sitting on the edge, dangling her feet into outer space as if she were sitting at the edge of a pool and hadn’t made up her mind if she wanted to dive in or daydream. Her hair is down. She’s wearing earth clothes: a striped T-shirt and cutoff jean shorts. In her hand, she holds an ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles.

The door opens, and she’s there. Just like a dream. A dream with vivid hair and… ice cream?

“Sylvie,” he says.

She looks over her shoulder, and her face radiates joy when she sees him. “Gabe!” She leaves the ice cream suspended mid air and jumps up, bounding over, barefoot, and buries him in a hug. “You came just in time to help me with the stars.”

He holds onto her, letting himself feel every movement of her body as she melts into him. Sylvie’s heartbeat is palpable against his chest, and her curves fit against his body in a way that makes him sigh a little. Happiness has been such a luxury, and in this moment he feel like Gatsby and basks in the glory of being perfectly content.

“How is this possible?” he asks, murmuring the words into her wild curls.

“There is so much that exists outside of our comprehension, really. It would be narcissistic to think that the only things possible are those we can understand.”

Begrudgingly, he pulls back from the embrace and looks at her, seeing the stars reflected in her eyes a thousand times over. Leaning his forehead against hers, he says, “I must be dreaming.”

She nuzzles him, nose to nose, “Just enjoy it, pretty boy.” Then she takes him by the hand and leads him to her perch. As they sit down together, inches apart, feet dangling into nothingness, he notices a fresh root beer float at his side, suspended in a frosted mug.

“Nothing represents the nature of the universe better than the night sky. You can look and look and look and still there is no way to make sense out of it. We build myths around the sky, draw constellations to map our travels, tie our fates to the astrological leanings of planetary alignments… but for all our science and all our models and all our theories we can’t quantify what is in the universe's soul.” Her passion is burning as bright as her fiery hair.

“This is what I wanted to show you, that first night, in my Ready Room,” he says, squeezing her hand. “There’s nothing like experiencing this, and never taking it for granted. We live in space, see it around us every single day, but most of the crew forget to look out of their windows to see the stars and solar systems pass by.” He lets go of her hand and puts his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him.

She fits perfectly under his arm, snug up against his chest, and she pulls her knees up to nestle right in. “I had this idea, but it’s only a theory, really. Not even a theory. It’s not based on any facts, or anything… just a feeling…”

“What’s that?” Gabriel leans his head against hers, resting his chin on the top of her head.

“Well,” she smiles, sheepishly, “I was thinking… if there was a sort of… music… to the universe… even one we can’t hear or even perceive in any quantifiable way… if such a thing existed and pulled at us outside of time and space towards some deep rhythm, making us yearn for harmony… that would be a beautiful way to try to understand the cosmos… not as a series of laws and equations… but as a dance.”

At this, she looks up into his face, wondering how he is receiving her wildly romantic notions. Her subconscious has brought him to her dream for a reason, has it not? This dream persona of him represents the authoritative side of her own personality, those leadership qualities in which she often feels lacking: self-confidence and assertiveness. But with him here, embracing her, listening to her, she feels she could do anything, unravel any mystery, dive into any unknown.

“Have you been dipping into the Tardigrade DNA with Stamets?” He looks at her and sighs, wondering if he could take a hit of the same thing that makes this girl so intoxicating. It’s too much of a temptation to kiss her, and he leans in close, gently pressing his lips to hers for the briefest moment, just long enough to let their breath mingle. When he pulls away, he says, “I think that’s lovely.”

It’s not until the words leave his lips that he realizes she does not look particularly happy. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You always know exactly what to say to push my buttons. I already feel like a misfit. I don’t need you telling me the only explanation is that I’m jacked up on some kind of drugs.”

“Darlin’, I know you aren’t jacked up on anything,” he says, putting his hands on either side of her face. “Haven’t you figured out that the reason I like you so much is because you see the world so differently than I do?”

She pouts, not meeting his gaze. It makes her nervous that he’s talking about liking her. It’s hard for her to let him accept her… harder still for her to accept herself.

“Look at me.”

She obeys.

“When I’m awake, I can’t talk about… anything? Not like this. But here, with you, it’s different.” He kisses her again, just as gently, but lets his lips linger over hers. She closes her eyes, allows herself to… feel it… to feel his words. “I wanted to spend time with you because you see the world in a way I’ve forgotten how to, and I miss that.” Another kiss, longer this time, and she sighs as he runs the tip of his tongue over her lower lip before he moves away. “And because you’re you. Some things you just can’t explain.”

Through the haze of seduction, something registers in her mind… something he said… “ _ when I’m awake _ ”...she opens her eyes and looks at him, quizzically.

“Do you want me to start spilling all the little things you do that make me smile?” he asks.

“Oh, God,  _ please _ , no. Absolutely not!”

“I love it when you ramble.”

“Please. Shut up,” she laughs.

He grins and kisses her again, shutting himself up briefly. “I love it when you spout off scientific facts, even when you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Gabe! Please!” She’s blushing now, tugging at his shirt.

“I love the way you care about the people in your life, like Michael.”

She buries her face in his chest, muffling her nervous laughter.

“I love that you think outside of the box; you really will make a great Cap --”

Before he can say another word, she has her lips pressed against his, muffling out his words with a kiss.

“--tain,” he tries to finish. He tries to break away, but his attempts are half hearted, and when she slips into his lap, he lets her overpower him with her kisses.

Her hands at his neck, fingers in his hair, and knees bent on either side of him, she has him. He is hers. He…  _ he is hers. _

She’s straddling him, her hips moving against his and creating a friction that makes him want to crawl out of his skin with lust. Still, part of him wants to laugh. Given his clothes, and something about the setting and the way they are dressed, all they need is some hay and the smell of horses and it would remind him very much of his going away party from when he went to the Academy.

Her lips taste like sweet vanilla, and he runs his tongue against them again, wanting more. He runs his hands along her back, dipping his hands underneath her shirt. “Hello again,” he whispers.

“Hello,” she sighs, lifting her arms, and as he pulls the shirt over her head, she mutters, absentmindedly, “Hello always…”

The bra underneath is a pale pink, made of a material that feels silky underneath Gabriel’s fingertips. He slides his hands along the edges, letting his fingers dip underneath to feel soft, smooth skin. “I like that word -- ‘always’.”

Her hands find their way back down to his collar, and she tugs on it as she bucks into him in response to the contact. She smiles, all pink lips and perfect teeth, “Always.”

He smiles back, feeling very happy as she unbuttons his shirt. The air around them grows warm, comfortable -- perfect for making love, like being in an open field on a warm, spring evening. There should be a bed this time, instead of the uncomfortable floor… and somehow there is one, as though there was one there the whole time. The only thing that could make it more perfect would be if… well, at this point, he can’t think of anything.

The last button free, she slides her hands lazily inside, across his stomach, running up his sides, while she leans back and bites her lower lip, admiring him. “Gosh...you’re so pretty…” Then she slips her hands up to his shoulders, freeing him from the shirt entirely and immediately her mouth is at his neck, at his collarbone, kissing his newly visible flesh.

“You’re the one who’s pretty, Sylvie.” He moans as she kisses him, thoroughly enjoying the attention she is giving his neck. “I wish you’d let me say it.”

“Sure,” she kisses his shoulder and mumbles distractedly, “Okay,”  _ whatever _ ...she doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t want to fight. “Everyone is pretty in their own way…” more kisses, “eye of the beholder…” traveling kisses, “blah blah blah…”

“What is it you kids say… I call bullshit?”

She laughs and leans back to look in his face.  _ Yeah _ .  He got her. She shrugs.

“If you admit that you’re beautiful, I’ll grant you one wish,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Here, or anywhere.”

“Pfffft,” she punches his arm, laughing.

“I mean it,” he says, sliding a hand inside the cup of her bra and giving her nipple a playful pinch. “One wish. Whatever you want. If you admit it.”

Her mind goes a little fuzzy and she half wants to punch him again, but what she really wants is more of him at her chest. A deep breath through her nose, and she looks at him through a half haze of desire and defenselessness. Cupping his face, she murmurs, “What more could I wish for?”

“Then grant me my wish.  _ I _ want to hear it.” He looks up at her, pleading. “Please.”

She just sits there in his lap for awhile, looking in his eyes, her hands cupping his face. And her eyes shimmer with the possibility of tears. “I’m not trying to be difficult. I just…” she doesn’t know how to explain it. She’s never been beautiful. Not to anyone. And, maybe, she spent so much time trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe so that she didn’t have to unravel the mysteries of her own soul. She gives him a warm, lingering kiss, then leans back again, eyes unfocused, remembering. “My mom was gorgeous. Objectively beautiful, by any standards. Even after having three kids, she was slender and poised and had perfect makeup and clothes and… everything…”

“I used to love watching her, y'know?” Tilly looks at him, smiling the sad smile of a child who still yearns for her mother’s love. “I’d sit on the toilet while she brushed her hair or did her makeup. She was always so elegant to me. Perfect.”

She laughs then, blinking back tears as she lowers her hands between them, holding onto his, looking at their interlaced fingers. “I was never the daughter she wanted. I was her only girl, but I would have rather been riding bikes and playing video games than going shopping for one more dress that would just end up ripped or stained.”

He’s moved by her admission. It touches something deep within him, for he had the opposite experience, growing up. His hands go to her shoulders, her back, and he pulls her down to him, snuggling her against his bare chest. As she wraps her arms around him and squeezes herself close, he kisses the top of her head. “I was the boy who couldn’t do anything wrong. I was smart, all the girls chased after me, and I made my parents proud. I didn’t even have to worry about running the farm, when my father was too old to care for it anymore -- my little brother was the one who wanted to fill those shoes.”

It’s an odd thing to admit -- that you had a near perfect childhood, and Gabriel did. His life, until his ambition to become a Captain started to rule every waking second of it, had been easy. But it was then that things became… emptier. Almost meaningless. Reflexively, he looks down at his chest to look for his pin, but only sees the masses of stray strands curling on his bare skin. And he realizes again that his life seems a lot less dim with her in it, and he’s very glad she is here with him.

“It doesn’t matter, what our parents think of us, Sylvie. What matters is who we are, in here.” He strokes her head as he speaks, and lets his hand drift down to her back, resting over her heart. “On the outside, you’re pretty. But it’s all your words, all that heart on the inside of you that makes you beautiful.”

“I never wanted to be beautiful,” she admits, squeezing him. “I saw how obsessed my mom was with it, and other women, too. And while I yearned for her to accept me, I wanted her to just… let me not be beautiful.” She adjusts, sliding her head up onto his shoulder as she talks, arm draped loosely across his chest.

“It seemed to me that people- mostly women- who wanted to be admired and adored ended up tying their entire lives to the acceptance of another person who was inevitably fickle and unpredictable. She was always beautiful  _ for him _ . It only mattered if it mattered  _ to him _ . So when he kept working late and taking business trips with his secretary, she never held him accountable, never demanded anything more than what he was willing to freely give. She just...joined Weight Watchers.”

“I never wanted to be that person. I wanted to do something I could be proud of, make a difference in the universe, not devote my mind to some sort of foolish quest for vanity.”

Keeping his head level after she is done speaking is a measure of devotion, because the last thing Gabriel wants to do is make her mad, not after she has spoken like this. She’s asked him to be nicer to her before, and he’s finally listening, at least in this place. He wants her to understand what he sees when he looks at her, to feel the rise in his chest and the… he holds in a snort, realizing he sounds like one of his mother’s old romance novels. But when he looks at Sylvie, he feels all the things he should have felt, could have felt…

“When you walk into my Ready Room, even with all the damn lights off to accommodate these broken eyes, the whole room lights up, Sylvie. I see you perfectly, and if that’s just going to be a little secret for me to have, then I’ll be happy to carry it.”

She squeezes him, chuckling, “You’re kinda bad at keeping secrets.”

“Am I now?”

“Pfttt… for starters: you just told me this one!” She draws invisible circles on his chest with her finger.

“This one doesn’t count.” He traps her finger and brings it to his mouth, sucking it gently before he speaks. “I want you to know it, and think about it for a while.”

_ Oh god _ … her eyes flutter at the stimulation and she feels a chord unwind from her chest down to her crotch. And she… and she… she thinks of a question she is not brave enough to ask in her waking life. Her chest feels like it’s cracking open and it scares her and she thinks-  _ What’s the point of asking him here? He’s just a dream, just a projection of her subconscious. _ \- and the confusing reality of that slides like a blade between her hopes and her fears and, suddenly, she feels so sad, so desperately sad, because she knows, she just knows: as perfect as this is, it could never be real.

Quickly, she takes her hand back, and clings to him, burying her face in his neck. “Why me, anyways?”

He frowns. “Haven’t you been listening to me, since I showed up? I’ve been trying to tell you all night.”

She smarts at his indignation, then tries again, more softly this time, “I mean, why in the beginning? Why pick me? Mentor me? I’m… I’m kind of a nobody… I mean… not in a self deprecating way… I just… you could…”

“Shhhh… I see what you’re asking now.” He gathers her in closer to him, bracing her. “I have the reputation on the ship for being something of a…” He sighs. This isn’t the easiest thing to talk about, especially when it’s something that he no longer has any interest in. “You know I’m a bastard, right?”

She brings her hand up to his chest again. His heart is beating rapidly. She wants to look in his eyes, but doesn’t want to spook him.  _ What is going on?  _ “I… I mean… I guess maybe sometimes you are kinda heavy handed or short or something...but I don’t know if I’d call you a bastard…”

He would, and does, often, in his thoughts. “I’ve had non-exclusive sexual relationships with several of the crew members on this ship, since I became Captain. When I asked you to my Ready Room, I was hoping that you and I would... that you might --”

“You wanted to fuck me.”

Gabriel’s chest grows cold, but he admits the truth. “I wanted to fuck you.”

It takes everything in her power not to look into his face. Not yet. “You didn’t know anything about me, and you wanted to fuck me.”

“I was attracted to you physically, and I liked your spirit.” His eyes are starting to hurt, and he wonders how that could be when he’s been so comfortable up until now. One hand covers his face, while the other holds her close.

She can’t take it any longer. She sits up, pulls his hand away from his eyes to make sure he can see the expression on her face, because, for once in her life, she truly lacks the vocabulary to adequately convey her feelings. “You really do think I’m beautiful, don’t you!” Cheeks flush, eyes shimmering, but not from sadness. No. Crinkling up at all her edges, her face is about to bubble over in laughter and surprise. Sure… she can tell he likes her personality now… but that’s not where it started for him. He thought she was a hot piece of ass!

Relief washes over him so fast that he laughs nervously as he studies her face. “I was sure you were going to slap me, or leave. Looking back at my behavior, I’d deserve either... of those...”

A finger on his lips, she shushes him. “I could never leave you.”

_ Fuck _ .

His eyes no longer hurt from pain, but they do sting. Blinking rapidly, he wills himself to calm down, even though his heart is pounding.

She slips her finger back into his mouth and flits her eyebrows at him. Voice low, she cocks her head and holds his gaze while she says, “I want you. To fuck me. And call me beautiful.”

The male body is a curious thing. Two seconds ago, Gabriel was aroused (as he always was when she was near, even away from this place). But he wasn’t hard, not yet. But with those words, her acceptance of him even with his flaws, and that damn finger wiggling in his mouth… The pressure in his jeans is instantaneous, painful, and absolutely perfect.

“By all means,” he says, letting his tongue swirl around her fingertip for a moment. “I’ve never been one who says no to a lady.”

His tongue over the cluster of nerves in her fingertip ricochets across her entire nervous system in waves. She applies pressure, locks her grip onto his jaw, and repeats herself, more firmly this time, “I need you. To fuck me. And call me beautiful.”

He takes her free hand in his, moving it down to his groin, letting her feel that he’s more than ready to fulfill her request. “Then I think we’re both still wearing too many clothes, don’t you?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Then why don’t you  _ do _ something about that, Captain?”

With a grin, and with one hand, he unfastens her bra, and as he tosses it aside, it floats away, midair. “Come here,” he moans, ready to breathe her in and feel her against him.

She slips her finger out of his mouth and slides both palms around his neck, fingers playing with his ears, feeling the texture of his hair. She presses her now naked chest flush against his, kissing him urgently on the lips before pulling back, forehead pressed against his as she murmurs, “I need you… please...”

There’s a moment while she plays with his hair, just before she kisses him, that Gabriel realizes there a word for what he’s feeling for this woman. It’s on his tongue, as bittersweet as the darkest chocolate his mother used to buy at Christmas. But he can’t say it, let alone think it, and it doesn’t do to dwell on such things. But he can do one thing, one thing to clarify what he wants to do tonight. “I want to make love to you. And call you beautiful.”

_ That’s… that’s different… _

She is so eager for physical contact with him, impatient even, that she nearly offers a quick, “Ok,” just to get him to fuck her already, but what he is offering… to make love… that’s so much more.

She leans back to look in his face, and the adoration she finds there is so earnest it scares her.

_ This is just a fucking dream! Why should it fucking scare her? _

She never… she’s never… never in her life has she allowed herself to think, to even consider, to even hope or dream, that she might be beautiful to someone. And here she is, baring her body and soul to him, seen as clearly in his eyes as she has ever been seen by anyone, and she believes… she truly believes him… she believes in the deep way that the body knows things the head cannot understand… she believes: he finds her to be beautiful. And it scares her more than anything she’s ever known.

But…

She trusts him. Even if she doesn’t understand, even if she is afraid, she also trusts him and is ok living for awhile in the fear as long as it means she can be close to him. Her heart flutters and swells within her as she takes a leap of faith. Calmly, earnestly, as bravely as she knows how, she lets the two syllables fall from her lips:

“Ok.”

The breath he exhales is one he’s been holding onto for awhile; it didn’t occur to him until she finally spoke that he is so nervous. This is a new thing to him, and he realizes it’s been years since he’s been this anxious before sex. But he’s only considered sex to be something other than fucking with one other person, and that ended.

Gabriel refuses to think about that now, and pushes the errant thought away. This is about them now, and he only wants to focus on her this night.

His hand shakes as he lifts it, placing it on her neck. “Kiss me again, Sylvie.”

She looks affectionately over his face, really taking him in, then leans forward, as if for a kiss, but, instead, nudges his nose with her own. In a husky voice, she goads him, “Come and get it.”

Her lips are so close that it takes no effort at all to capture them with his. Their bodies meld together, and as he gently rolls her onto her back he doesn’t want to lose contact with her, not even for a moment. The softness of her skin is an addiction, the heat a drug, and he loses himself in the joy of being a part of her.

She doesn’t know at what point she is freed from the rest of her clothes, or at what point he does the same. She doesn’t register whose hands did the unbuttoning, the unbuckling, the sliding and slipping off. As the night progresses, it gets harder to ascertain where she ends and he begins. When one of them moves, it’s as if they both move. When one moans, they both feel the pleasure. When one aches, the other aches and aches and aches. And oh… how she aches for him… the more he satiates that ache, the more he uncovers her hidden longings for him, delving deeper and deeper still, she wonders if this abyss of feeling will ever lead to some sort of solid ground, or if she will just keep falling and falling and falling for him.

There is no forest, only trees, and there are so many that he can only navigate his way through with his heart. It beats for her, only her, and even in the maddening height of pleasure he is not lost.

Instead, he is found.

“Beautiful,” he moans. “You are beautiful.”

Her heart breaks open wide.

_ “You are beautiful, my darling girl...” _

A darkness inside her implodes.

_ “So beautiful...” _

And out of the darkness, there is formed: light.

_ “My beautiful, beautiful lady.” _

She cracks at the seams, and a new light streams out.

_ “Beautiful.” _

She feels so empty but so full. She feels… she feels like she is everywhere and nowhere at all… she feels like she doesn’t recognize who she is becoming, but, also, that she has never been more herself. She searches his eyes, holds him close to her, and she knows: no matter where they might travel, no matter what lands they might explore, he is the closest thing she has ever had to a home.

He is holding her, enjoying the way her skin glows as much as he is enjoying the afterglow of amazing sex. Except that this was more than sex. He had set out to make love, and that’s exactly what had happened. Never once has he felt one with a woman before, as though he could not tell where he ends and she began, and there were moments tonight when that very thing happened. And it was just as glorious as the look in her eyes when he called her beautiful, or softly called her name. The thought makes him smile faintly, wishing that she could see herself like that, the way that he can see her when she is unfocused and wild.

“Sylvie, I…” He wants to tell her how he feels, but there is something unresolved between them.

“Hmm?” she curls into him, resting her head on his chest.

“I hurt you,”he says. Very lightly, he glides a hand over her neck, down to her chest and belly, wondering if he can ascertain the spot just from instinct. But even in this state, he cannot; all he feels in her soft, warm skin. “Show me where?”

The question takes her off guard. “What?”

“I want to know where I hurt you, when we were awake and I had my breakdown... Please show me.”

She sits up and reaches for his face. “Oh… Gabe…”

He closes his eyes. “Sylvie, please… I have to see…”

She rubs his cheek, hesitant, “It would only hurt you. And, besides, it’s done. In the past.”

“Not for me,” he says. “You may be healed from that wound, but I haven’t been.”

A soft laugh escapes her as she chastises him, not unkindly, “You wouldn’t even let me forgive you. You ran away.”

“I’m here now.” He opens his eyes. “Don’t make me beg.”

“I just…” she sighs, “I wish you’d let me talk with you about it on the other side. I wish…” what she wishes is imposible. But as she speaks these words, she drops her hands back into her lap and allows the old wounds to reappear… and out of respect for him, she does not show him what they were like at their best, but at their worst.

There’s no breath in his lungs. Everything is frozen as Gabriel looks at the bruises on her chest, along her sides. He did that to her, and no one else. Even if he didn’t know where he was and who she was when it happened, he’s still to blame.

Bastard.

_ Must you destroy everything you care about? _

He lifts a hand to her side, barely touching an area the exact size and shape of his fist. His stomach fills with lead, and he wants…

He wants to scream.

He’s never hurt a woman. And that he’s hurt her makes him feel much less of a man.

“I’m sorry.”

“Gabe?”

He lifts his head, letting his eyes meet hers.

“I knew what I was getting into the moment I engaged. I knew what might happen, and I do not regret my choice.” Her eyes are watering. God, she hopes he believes her, believes in her enough to trust her, trusts that she’s strong enough to know what she’s talking about. “Gabe… there’s nothing to forgive.”

Gently, even though he wants to grab her to him and never let go, he embraces her, burying his nose in her fragrant hair. He feels like a child, needing to be comforted and seeking it from the very person he hurt just as a child would.

“I want to tell you a secret.” She squeezes him close.

“What is it?”

“I trust you with my life.” She is calm, unafraid. “I trust you with… my everything.”

It takes him by surprise, and it feels like both of his eyebrows might lift straight off of his face. “Why would you do that? Knowing what you know about me?”

She looks him over, and a soft pride emanates from her eyes… it’s the same pride she felt the day she stood in his room and witnessed the rawness of his brokenness, only he was unwilling to see it then.

“Because, despite everything you’ve been through, you refuse to close your eyes. Even though it hurts like hell, you keep looking for the light. You could abandon post, run away, or hide, but you don’t. You’re a survivor, and you use everything you’ve got to save as many people around you as possible. And that is the kind of Captain I aspire to be someday.”

His heart thuds, and breathing is more difficult than ever. In fact, it becomes very difficult for Gabriel to see correctly, and his vision gets slightly blurry.

_ Why is this only a dream? _

She wants to kiss him again, but she can sense it: she is fading. “I have to go.”

“I know.” He feels it to, the lessening of the world around them and the rebirth of reality.

She wraps her arms around him one last time, holding onto contentment while it lasts. And she is strangely silent.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

She feels… sad… and happy… and full… and empty… and hopeful… and doubtful if she could ever know this kind of completeness in real life. But there’s no time to explain all that. So, instead, she sits up,  cups his face with her hands, and, with stars in her eyes, she confesses, “Beautiful. I feel beautiful.”

“Then I got my wish.” He grins.

She laughs. She’d forgotten about their bargain. “I suppose you did.”

* * *

Tilly awakens long before her alarm, hand on her cheek, and lingers in bed, letting her dream wash over her.

She dresses, chit chats half-heartedly on her way to breakfast, which she eats, sitting alone, lost in thought.

Then, she slips back into her room to brush her teeth, before heading down to the lab.

Standing in front of the mirror, she pauses to just… look… for a moment. She regards her face, then turns to one side, then the other, examining her body as if she is seeing herself for the first time. She rinses and gargles and wipes her mouth and looks her reflection in the eye.

“You really are beautiful, you know it?”

* * *

“Good morning, Captain. It is 0430, and you will be needed in your Ready Room in 30 minutes for a meeting with Starfleet Command.”

Gabriel opens his eyes and flinches, closing them as he grabs his Optho-Pen and injects himself. “Thank you, Computer.”

“You’re welcome, Captain.”

Another wet dream… fuck. He scans the room quickly, of course seeing no trace of her here, and gets out of bed to shower. But a careful observer would have noticed him hum, just under his breath, all the way to the to the Ready Room. In fact, even the not so attentive observers, like Mr. Rhys, noticed that the Captain snapped far less that day, and in some instances…

Smiled. Like he meant it.


	7. A Meaningful Energy Transference

The evening after she took Michael out drinking was the second night she dreamt of Gabe...er… _Captain Lorca_.

She shakes her her head as she walks to the lab. _Seriously, Sylvie, what’s wrong with you?!??_

As she settles into her station, she sees him in her mind's eye, pulling her close, wearing his chambray shirt. She logs in and remembers his laugh, the joy in his eyes. She remembers his kisses, remembers him promising her a wish, any wish, if only she’d call herself beautiful. And she rests her hand on her belly and feels the word glow within her: “ _beautiful_.”

After her shift, she settles in with her PADD and a meal in the canteen, pulling up the Dream Dictionary she’d bookmarked. The dream felt so tangible, like invisible things were visible...like the fantasy was somehow real.

 _But that’s ridiculous_. She laughs to herself, typing into the search bar. There has to be some deeper, symbolic meaning that her subconscious is trying to communicate.

If she could just look up the individual elements of the dream and then analyze how they might interrelate, that would give her a model of what the dream’s message might be.

_Night_

_Night may be synonymous with death, rebirth, reflection, and new beginnings._

_To dream that it is night time, but it is still as bright as day, indicates that you now have clarity and insight into a once unclear situation. Something that was previously hidden is now being revealed to you._

_Constellation_

_To see a constellation in your dream indicates that something in your life is coming together in a complex way. It represents a mental process._

_Stars_

_To see stars in your dream symbolize excellence, success, aspirations or high ideals._

“Well that makes sense,” she says to her pudding cup as she dips a spoon into it. “I’ve been working hard at becoming Captain and now I have lots of support, both from Burnham and Lorca. This is like… a new beginning down that path towards excellence.”

She thinks more about the setting, and how the wall of her bedroom was opened up, like one large window.

_Bedroom_

_To dream that you are in the bedroom signifies aspects of yourself that you keep private. It is also indicative of your sexual nature and intimate relations._

_Window_

_To see a window in your dream signifies bright hopes, vast possibilities and insight. The size of the window is reflective of your outlook; a small window suggests that you tend to not get your hopes up too high when good things happen, while a large window symbolizes your openness to new experiences._

_Walls_

_To see a wall in your dream signifies limitations, obstacles and boundaries._

_To dream that you tear down a wall indicates that you are breaking through obstacles and overcoming your limitations. It also means that you desire some freedom and independence._

“That doesn’t have anything to do with work,” she pouts, sticking her spoon into her pudding. “That would kinda be saying that I want freedom and am open to experiencing new things, in my private life, but…” what kind of obstacles would be in her way? Gabriel’s face flits into her mind’s eye, and she feels her heart surge, but she immediately pushes the idea away, thinking to herself. “ _No, Tilly. He’s your Captain. It would hardly be appropriate. And, besides, he could be with anyone. He’s just mentoring you, being kind.”_

She needs to look up more symbols.

_Ice Cream_

_To see or eat ice cream in your dream denotes good luck, pleasure, success in love and satisfaction with your life. You need to savor the moment and enjoy it._

_Sprinkles_

_To see or eat sprinkles in your dream represent joy, pleasure, satisfaction and appreciation for how your life is proceeding. The dream may also be a metaphor for how your life is topped off with a bit of sweetness. Enjoy it._

“Ok, ok… carpe diem…” she takes another pudding bite, savoring it this time, letting the spoon linger in her mouth.

What about...her dream clothes…?

_ Barefoot _

_To dream that you are barefoot represents your playful attitudes and relaxed, carefree frame of mind. You may also be dealing with issues concerning your self-identity. You are unprepared for what is ahead for you._

_ Pink _

_Pink represents love, joy, sweetness, happiness, affection and kindness. Being in love or healing through love is also implied with this color._

_ Bra _

_To dream that you are wearing a bra signifies support and protection. Perhaps you need to have your spirits uplifted._

She lingers over these words, pondering them. They hit close to home.

She doesn’t really know how to let someone close.

It’s not like she’s never been with someone. She’s dated. But it just left her feeling lonelier after. Nobody she had met had really understood her or allowed her the space to truly blossom and be seen for everything she could be in a relationship. And that is ok. She doesn’t need anyone to appreciate her. She has her accomplishments and her work. That is enough. Right?

Then Gabriel’s words ring in her ears, and not the words from her dream, no… the words from last time they spoke, when he left her outside the canteen. “ _Ambition is a wonderful thing. But to possibly have a future of some kind, with someone else… it’s worth just as much as having your own ship.”_ She sets down her spoon and returns to the dream dictionary.

_ Bruise _

_To dream that you have a bruise represents stress and mounting pressure that you are dealing with in your waking life. It may also refer to a reawakening of old, family wounds that have not been properly addressed._

She thinks immediately of her mom, of the affection she always longed for and never received. Is that why she dreamt about being close to Lorca? Is this just a form of Daddy issues?

_Cuddle_

_To dream that you are cuddling with someone indicates your need for physical and/or emotional contact. Do not overlook the obvious meaning of this dream which suggests your heart's desire for that particular person…_

“No.” She slams down her PADD. This is rubbish.

\---

Gabriel walks through the halls of his ship, enjoying the simplicity of the act for a change. Even though he hears no echo when his sneakered feet touch the floor, there’s something in him that has changed so much that there might as well be. His entire body feels alive, vibrant, and his mind is… well, it’s not at peace, that much is certain. But it’s better. There’s a subtle calmness that’s there that wasn’t there previously, a stillness when he constantly thought about anything and everything else.

And he has his dreams to thank for it.

He laughs to himself, scaring a Cadet who was walking near him. She squeaks and runs off, making him laugh a little louder as he continues his stroll around his ship.

_When did he earn such a reputation?_

It’s of no consequence, because he’s changing, and for the better.

The aroma of food reaches his nose, and he realizes he probably forgot to eat lunch, as fast as his stomach gurgles in response. Usually, he’d never eat in the Canteen, but perhaps it’s time to change that. Become more… accessible to his crew. Like he once was.

Smiling, he walks inside the large room and scans it, disappointed when he mistakenly thinks it’s empty. A second look shows a figure in the very back, her back to him, slamming her PADD against the table so hard it looks like it might break. It’s not until he comes to the table that he sees bright hair hidden underneath a cap, and he stops, almost turning around and leaving before he’s found out.

_They’re only dreams, Gabriel. Aren’t they?_

Tilly picks up her pudding cup, only to find it empty. “Not you, too?” She tosses it down, accusingly, and turns her attention to her salad. “You won’t betray me, will you? No. You’re incapable of betrayal.” And she stuffs a mouthful of leaves into her face.

_Is she… talking to her food?_

Instead of leaving, Gabriel slips into a seat at the table behind her and listens.

She chews and swallows and spears another forkful, pausing to address it. “Oh. I know what you’re thinking. ‘But if we betray you, then you won’t eat us!’ Well, guess what, buddies. You’re not currently alive and your best bet at becoming part of a meaningful energy transference is right here with me, so it’s meal time or bust.”

Chin to templed fingers, he relaxes to the sound of her voice, even in this setting. Eyes closed, he can almost drown out the chatty and focus on her voice, and the way it makes him feel when they are together…

His groin agrees wholeheartedly, and stirs to attention.

 _Fuck_.

She picks up her pudding cup with a sigh and voices it once again:

“Of course if you really want a meaningful energy transference, you could always…”

“Oh quiet, you.”

“No, no, really, you could... _you know._...”

“Stop winking at me.”

“I don’t have eyes. I’m incapable of winking.”

“Yea. I know. I’m talking to an empty, unwinkable pudding cup.”

“Hey, now. No reason to be rude.”

“Me? Rude? Never. Oh! Wait...there’s a little more pudding in you. Ok. Maybe you’re not so bad, after all.”

She dips her finger in and runs it along the side of the cup before popping it in her mouth.

His lip twitches, and he lazily opens one eye.

Well, he has to know the answer, even if he already has an idea.

“So what can you do for a meaningful energy transference, Cadet?”

“ _Jesus Christ_!” she jumps in her chair, swiveling back to see him behind her.

“Not quite. Just Gabriel Lorca,” he says with a smirk.

“You can’t sneak up on people like that!” She slaps his arm. “What if I’d been eating this dumb salad? I could’ve choked!”

“I can indeed sneak up on people,” he shrugs. “My ship, my rules. One of those is to investigate any food stuffs that start talking -- or crew members who begin talking for them.”

She raises her chin, refusing to be embarrassed, then furrows her brow at him. “What are you doing here, anyways.” She takes a moment to notice his outfit: athletic wear, no food, even though they’re in the canteen. Then she has a flash of worry. “Nothing’s wrong, is it? Oh god. You have some horrible news that can’t wait, don’t you.”

“No, actually. I was just cooling down after my run and decided it was time to eat. I thought I smelled something a little more appetizing than… undressed garden salad and chocolate pudding. Did you not have an entree?”

Sylvia voices, out of the side of her mouth, “‘Hey! Who you calling undressed. I’ll have you know I’m perfectly modest…’”

Then she laughs, bemusedly, and shakes her head, “Ignore her. She’s just jealous because I ate dessert first.” And she gives him a playful smile, amused still at her own game.

“You didn’t answer my question, Cadet. That’s hardly a dinner.” He sighs as he stands and walks to the synthesizer. “Pad Thai with tofu, enough for two crew members, and green tea.”

“Yes, Captain Lorca. A double portion of Pad Thai with tofu and green tea.”

The food and set-up appears on the tray in front of him, and he takes it back to Tilly’s table. Placing the noodles between them, and keeping the tea for himself, he grabs a fork and attacks his side of the food.

“Well…?” She looks at him as if he forgot something obvious.

“Eat, Cadet. It’s good for you.”

“Captain,” she tosses her head back, hand on her chest, mocking social graces. “What kind of a lady do you take me for? I can’t eat a new meal until we’ve been properly introduced.”

He stops mid-chew and stares at her. Swallowing, he says, “No.”

“Fine. I’ll introduce myself,” turning to the warm bowl, she says, “Hello. I’m Tilly. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Then, with a horribly affected southern twang, she voices the soup, “Don't you dare give me a voice! I’m a serious meal! Voices are for salads and puddings!”

“Sylvia?” He’s having to hold in a laugh; even with his new attitude there are some things he shouldn’t partake in. Passing her a fork, he continues to try his best to appear stern, even though his lip is twitching uncontrollably.

The meal carries on, in her horrible twang, “And what’s his problem? Why can’t he give me a voice? Why do I have to be stuck with you?”

Sylvia twirls her fork into the noodles, “Oh never mind him. He’s just a pretty boy. All the real work gets done around here by cadets like me. I got your back.” Then she stuffs the noodles into her mouth and looks at Lorca with a twinkle in her eye.

Gabriel had been on the verge of answering the noodles… or, her voice for the noodles, when she said something that triggered a memory from his dreams.

_Pretty boy._

She’s not the first person to say it, in or out of sleep. Even Kat had accused him of it on a few occasions, though never with that exact wording. It makes him pause, and he stares at her like a codfish until he can gather his thoughts.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sylvia notices Commander Saru pop his head into the canteen, pause, then start a stride directly for their table. She sobers up, quickly, and stuffs her mouth full of noodles.

“Oh. Captain. Here you are.” The first officer’s calm voice interrupts them, calling Lorca to attention.

“Good evening, Number One. Is everything alright?”

Saru eyes the unusual pair and notes the one bowl shared between them. “I hope I am not interrupting anything.”

“I was just educating our young Cadet on proper nutrition. She’s going to need it if she becomes my new running partner,” he says, glancing at Tilly quickly.

Sylvia busies herself with her fork, declining to comment.

Saru clicks his mouth and carries on. “Very well. We’re picking up a new frequency in the delta sector. You didn’t have your comm on …”

“You can take care of the investigative work on that. I have full faith in you, which is why I choose not to wear my comm when I run.” He looks up at Saru, puzzled. The slender alien really has no idea how capable he is, does he?

“Of course, Sir.” He glances at Tilly and back at Lorca, “May I suggest…”

“We’ll have blueberries for dessert,” Gabriel says, grinning. “But I draw the line with how you take your tea.”

Saru is puzzled. Is his Captain… joking? “Of course, Sir.” He feels odd. There is something off about this encounter. He fingers the back of his head to double check, but his threat ganglia are at ease.

“Would you like to join us, or… “

“Oh not at all. Duty awaits, Captain.” Saru nods at Tilly, “Cadet.” And then he leaves, more puzzled than when he arrived.

Sylvia looks at Gabriel, and swallows her mouthful of food. “Blueberries?”

“He has a thing for them.”

“Everyone knows that. But. _Blueberries_?”

“They’re full of antioxidants.”

“You’re gonna sit here and talk about another food when you haven’t even acknowledged your first course, yet? For shame, Captain. I expected better manners from you.”

Gabriel looks around the room, making very sure they are alone. “You owe me for this.”

Sylvia voices the soup, “Acknowledge me! Acknowledge me!”

He sighs and closes his eyes. “Good evening, my high protein, carb-loaded treat.”

She tosses her fork down and throws her head back, exploding in laughter.

He seethes as he stands, and walks to the synthesizer with a frown on his face — the first one he’s worn since —

“Oh! Don’t go! Please!”

“I’m just getting us some blueberries. With whipped cream, for two,” he adds.

She catches up to him, pulling him around to face her. “Fuck the blueberries. What’s wrong?”

“Spare me, Cadet. I don’t appreciate being laughed at when I’ve been cajoled into doing something I might not have wanted to do.”

Her laughter has dissipated completely. “Oh I’m sorry.” She bites her lip. “I wasn’t laughing at you. It’s just…”

He takes the new tray and waits for her to speak.

“I was happy.”

 _Ohhh_.

Gabriel takes a deep breath and nods to himself. “Leave it to me to misinterpret the signals from a happy woman. That doesn’t… well, at any rate. Truce?”

“Truce.” Her smile is soft this time, as they walk back to the table. “For what it’s worth, I would never laugh at you. But I understand how it could have come across wrong. I’ll try to be more aware in the future.”

He sits and puts the two bowls between them. “Apology accepted.” He glances at her shyly as he takes a berry and dips it in the cream. “ For what it’s worth, I might have said more. If, you hadn’t laughed.”

She picks up a spoon, and dips into her dessert, not even thinking to look at him. “Too bad I don’t have a wish. I could make you.” She pops the food in her mouth and hums, mouth full. “Oh! this is good!”

“You don’t need a wish. You could just ask.” He raises his eyebrows as he takes a bite, almost going into a daze.

 _A wish_...

“Captain,” Tilly addresses him, serious and stern, spoon poised with a bite of blueberries.

He snaps out of it. “Yes, Cadet?”

“Would you do me the honor of giving these poor souls a voice?”

He stares at her for a minute, trying to formulate the right thing to say. “It will be an honor to be consumed by such a beautiful lady, for in times of war we all need our strength. So to this end, we will be a sacrifice.”

At first she laughs. As he keeps talking, though, her smile fades and she just listens, feels the words, feels them inside of her, blossoming, while her spoon remains poised gently between them.

“They are… getting impatient for their deaths, Sylvia,” he says.

She shrugs out a small huff of a laugh. “Of course.” And slides the spoon between her lips, gaze on the table.

He knows he’s said the wrong thing, but it came so naturally that he couldn’t stop the word from coming out of his mouth. “I apologize, if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“No,” She shakes her head and places her spoon on the table as she looks up at him, rosy cheeked and smiling, “It was perfect.”

Her smile is just as breathtaking as it is in his dreams, and he’s dazzled by it for a few moments. It’s infectious too, for he’s smiling back, a genuine smile that usually no one gets to see. “Good. I was afraid it might have cost me my new running buddy.”

She rolls her eyes, “About that…” picking her spoon back up, she loads it with blueberries.

“I won’t take no for an answer, Cadet. I’m tired of music as my only friend.”

“How could you say such a thing, Captain?” This time it’s a terrible cockney voice she uses as she wriggles the blueberries in front of him. “And after all we’ve been through?! We thought we were friends!”

“Well, besides my favorite fruit.” Impulsively, he leans forward and takes the bite from her spoon, not realizing what he’s done until he tastes… the flavor of her mouth on the spoon, it’s...

The cockney is back. “Yaaaay! We get to go for the run! We get to go!” She laughs, taking another spoonful and lifting it between them, chuckling, “Us too! Us too!!”

He looks at the spoon, too baffled to speak.

 _Shit_. Has she pushed him too far? _Save face, Tilly!_

“It’s ok, little buddies. I’ll take you on the run.” And she swallows the mouthful, trying to read his expression as she gives him a soft smile.

“Tomorrow, we'll meet for a run instead of meeting in my Ready Room, if that’s acceptable?” He stands and loads his tray with empty dishes.

“Wait,” she stands with him.

“What?”

“Is something wrong?”

“My eyes are bothering me, and my pen is in my quarters. Forgive me.” The lie is effortless, as it is said so many times during a normal day.

“Oh. I’m sorry. Please, let me take care of the dishes.” She tries to take the tray from him, her hand accidentally brushing his.

The sensation of her skin, and the flavor of her mouth on his tongue is too much.

_The dreams, they’re…_

“Thank you. Tomorrow, then?” He’s already walking to the door.

“Captain Lorca,” She raises her voice, but does not follow him.

“Cadet Tilly?” He pauses at the door, but does not turn.

“I just wanted to say… goodnight.” Her voice is soft.

The room is too small for his thoughts, and he’s about to burst if he doesn’t start running. But he relents and turns, meeting her worried eyes. “Goodnight, Sylvia.”

His words give her a sense of peace, and she relaxes. “Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nods and walks out the door, waiting for it to close behind him before he breaks into a sprint.


End file.
